Archive for the ‘vegetable gardening’ Category

9 Jul

Disaster Preparedness: what do sunchokes have to do with it?

Posted by wooddogs3 in edible landscaping, front yard gardening, home food production, sustainable, urban homesteading, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , .

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Recently somebody checking out my garden over the fence asked if I was a “prepper.” My first response was “No, of course not,” because I don’t care to be associated in any way with the mindset that not-so-secretly longs for the end of civilization. I love civilization.

I do think, though, that a functioning urban homestead is in a good position to survive emergencies. And here’s the thing about emergencies: they happen. My own home state had a potent reminder of this some years back, when Hurricane Katrina broke the levee and New Orleans was flooded. Evacuees poured out of New Orleans and filled surrounding areas, and food and water supples were strained while roads were bumper-to-bumper and accommodations were scarce to nonexistent. All of this came under control with passage of time, but there were some grim weeks for all concerned. It can happen anywhere. Drought, epidemic, loss of power, you name the emergency and a well-supplied urban homestead is well on the way to getting through it and being able to help others. Nobody’s survival is guaranteed, ever. But we can improve the odds.

Urban homesteading is a mindset of reasonable self-sufficiency. I have no ambition to be a nation or a law unto myself. But reasonable forethought about emergency power, medical, water, and food strategies is, in my view, the responsibility of every citizen who has the luxury of a future to look forward to.

With that in mind, I’m keeping some plants around that I have no real desire to eat, and sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes is another name) are a good example. They are perennial and, as far as I can tell, indestructible. The tubers taste good either raw or cooked. They are loaded with inulin, a prebiotic nondigestible sugar that keeps them from raising blood sugar. The inulin also accounts for their GI effects, including gas for many people and uncomfortable cramping for me. If food were scarce, though, a little cramping would be the least of my worries. More important, if my supply of commercial feed for my livestock were interrupted, they could last a while on weeds and sunchokes, which could be cooked in my solar oven to make them more available to the chickens. The goat could eat the stems and leaves as well as the tubers.
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Besides their uses in disasters, they make a nice healthy green patch that I don’t have to fool with very much. In my desert area they need some supplemental water but not a lot. They are healthy and vigorous, by which I mean that you can’t kill them, and I confine them to one patch that can be mowed around to foil their plans for world domination.  They don’t play nicely in mixed plantings. The flowers are cheerful and have nectar for bees late in the season. They need to be dug and thinned in the fall. Don’t make any special effort to replant. Plenty will grow from the little bits that you missed. There are a number of different kinds that you can find with some trouble, but I planted a few tubers from the grocery store and they serve well enough.

Here’s an interesting post from Purdue with more details:

https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/jerusart.html

 

6 Jul

Elephant Garlic in the Semi-permaculture Garden

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, front yard gardening, home food production, Nose-to-tail vegetables, Uncategorized, urban homesteading, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , .

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Last fall was the first time that I ever planted elephant garlic. This enormous bulbing  garlicky-tasting leek came from Nichols Garden Nursery. I planted in early fall and scattered lettuce seed over the bed to use the floor space in the spring. The garlic made fall top growth, but I left it to grow.

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This spring I had a bed full of thick, sturdy, radiantly healthy green garlic, or rather green leeks in this case. I pulled some to use as green garlic, and was delighted by the warm, mildly garlicky flavor when sautéed in butter or olive oil with a little salt. I like all green garlic, but this one was my favorite. I didn’t let myself eat much of it, though, because I had my eye on a good bulb harvest. The bloomscapes care along in early May, and they make a nice subsidiary harvest if picked right away. Cooked at this stage, they are crisp, oniony, and sweet. Leave them more than 2-3 days after first appearance and they develop adamantine, unchewable fibers in the outer layer. Then come the flowers, and the few that I let bloom were very pretty. I forgot to take pictures so here are some borrowed shots:

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I have verified to my own satisfaction that if they are allowed to bloom the bulbs will be much smaller, so keep that in mind. The individual flowers make a tasty crunchy garnish, and are adored by bees, so they help carry pollinators through the hottest part of our summer, which is much appreciated.

Finally the tops started to yellow and bulb harvest began. Digging them is great fun; the enormous bulbs give you a sense of buried treasure. One must be quite a gardener, one feels, to produce a plant like that. So much of the time gardening is humbling that a little ego-aggrandizement does not come amiss.

The kitchen use is another matter. After a few tries, I can’t take to elephant garlic cloves either raw or cooked. The flavor is weakly garlicky with a bitter edge whether raw or cooked and does no dish any good, in my opinion. One online gardener has suggested that I need to hold it for a month or two, until this quality subsides. We’ll see.

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The greens are so good that I’ll continue to grow a lot of it, and next spring I’ll let myself harvest a lot more greens. I plan to divide my elephant garlic patch in two, and try two different growing methods. In one half, I’ll continue to grow it in the standard garlic fashion, digging and dividing and replanting each fall, and in the other half I’ll just let it perennialize and pull green garlic at will and see what happens. Of course I’ll be reporting back.

 

6 Jun

Chard’s Great Moment

Posted by wooddogs3 in edible landscaping, farmers market, front yard gardening, home food production, Nose-to-tail vegetables, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , .

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In my garden, this is the time to plant Swiss chard. It grows slowly in summer heat and gets a new lease on life in the fall, which is when I start eating it.  It goes dormant for the winter, and then in spring it emerges again and gradually progresses to making enormous leaves over a foot long.  These early spring leaves are very thick and meaty, and have a taste that has the umami elements of meat, but is mild and clean.  These early spring leaves are the ones that I eat, in huge quantities.  They are great cooked, and this is the only time of year that I love chard as a salad green. As soon as the plant starts to bolt to seed, the leaves of the elongating stalk acquire a rather dreadful dirty taste.  Interestingly, the large thick leaves at the base retain their mild delicious flavor for a while, so once the central stalk starts to form, you still have a week or two to collect leaves.  Then the chard season is over, and in my yard the rest is cut and goes to the goat.  When the last chard plant has been cut, I know it is time to plant more for the following fall and spring. ‘

So plan ahead, plant now, and love your chard in its best season.

4 Jun

A Grand Mess of Greens

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, farmers market, greens, herbs, home food production, Ketogenic diet, Uncategorized, Vegetable dinners, vegetable gardening, wild food. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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I love the various vegetables that the seasons offer me, and for the most part prefer to eat what my environment is offering me fresh that day. I do freeze greens mixtures, though, so that I never run short and have them all winter. Recently I came across a forager’s description of his “56 species calzone” and it made me want to count up the number of species in the large batch of cooked seasoned greens for the freezer  that I’m working on today.

The main components: chard, dock, lambs-quarters, spinach, nettles

Seasonings and minor components: mulberry leaves, hops shoots, lettuce ( about to bolt,) dandelion,  scorzonera, salsify, sunflower, green onion, young leeks, elephant garlic, corn poppies, young grape leaves, marjoram, mint, fennel, mustard, cattail shoots, pea vines, broccoli leaves,  arugula, sow thistle, wild lettuce

Sauteed separately and added: chopped broccoli stems, grape leaves, green garlic

So, 30 species, a thoroughly respectable count for an average early summer morning,  and a potential treasure on winter days when I need to be flooded with the antioxidants of summer. In general I blanch the bulk greens in a fairly small amount of water which I later drink or make soup from, saute the chopped alliums and seasonings, then combine all and saute together for five-ten minutes or until the flavors have blended.
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The true Cretan diet, the one that nourished some of the healthiest and longest-lived people in the world, was based on huge numbers of wild mountainside greens. It’s said that over 300 edible greens grow on Crete, and the average citizen can recognize over a hundred, making my 30 seem limited. But be assured that if you can learn to recognize ten of your local edible weeds and know when to harvest them and how to prepare them, your health and table will improve.  I’ve been tracking the preferences of a vegetable-despising friend, and he will eat greens, sometimes even second helpings, if they don’t look like greens on the plate. An example is the horta egg cake that I make often. He will even eat plain greens if they have a sweet component and a bit of texture, and an easy way to provide this is to douse them in the Quasi-Korean Sauce that I always have in the refrigerator and put a handful of roasted peanuts on top. If you eat bread, toasted sourdough bread crumbs provide delicious crunch on greens sautéed with garlic and chile flakes.
Be aware that greens have a remarkable capacity to absorb and mute flavors, and may need more seasoning than you think. Salt seems to disappear into them, and enough seasoning may be key to getting your loved ones to eat them and even like them. So keep tasting and adjusting until the flavor is right.
If you want to learn to identify some wild greens, gather them at the right stage, and cook them well, there is no better foraging author than John Kallas.

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