Produce has started rolling in from the garden plot. Yesterday, I made quick refrigerator pickles with my first harvested pickling cucumbers. I also made a batch of Thai basil pesto (no pictures), which I froze. I will have enough Thai basil to make two or more batches in the coming weeks. Yum!
This afternoon, I weeded the area where I had harvested the garlic two weeks ago and sowed one row each of sweet Italian basil, slow-bolting cilantro, Detroit Dark Red beets, Chioggia beets and Golden beets. The Chioggia seeds are four years old, and the Detroit Dark Red three years old, so we shall see whether they germinate. Fingers crossed.
This morning, I cleaned my garlic and prepared it for storage. As usual, I made a braid from the Transylvania softneck garlic, but this time, I added strawflowers for decoration.
It is my first time growing strawflowers in my garden plot, and I am growing them specifically for this purpose. They just started to bloom, so there will be many more flowers in the next weeks and months. I suspect the final garlic braid will look much more colorful than this first version as I will be adding more flowers.
I also cleaned the Red Russian hardneck garlic. I will leave the stems a bit longer for another couple of weeks before I cut them short. I just want to be sure they are completely dry. Those will then be stored in an open crock in the pantry and will be used up first as they do not keep as well as the softneck garlic. As usual, I saved the largest heads as seed garlic for fall planting – two heads for each type.
Overall, I put 2 lbs. 3 oz. of softneck garlic (17 heads) and 1 lb. 15 oz. of hardneck garlic (15 heads) into storage. One of the hardnecks may have been a softneck, but to be sure, I placed it with the hardnecks to be used up first. 36 heads were harvested overall, from 35 planted.
Made my first batch of “pesto” yesterday. I forgot to take pictures of the actual product (which is just basil, olive oil and salt for more versatility). I pureed everything and scooped it into an ice cube tray and covered it with more olive oil. This morning, I moved the frozen cubes to a ziplock bag. There will be several more batches, and I will make one that is an actual pesto with garlic, nuts (likely sunflower seeds), and cheese. Nothing better than to pull a couple of cubes from the freezer in the middle of winter to add to pasta or use as pizza base, focaccia topping or over chicken or fish.
It is a Stupice, yay! Tomato season has officially started. I also harvested my first (pickling) cucumber today.
Today, I harvested my garlic. A little later than in previous years, but it had just not been ready for harvest a week or so ago. I harvested 16 hardnecks (Red Russian) and 20 softnecks (Transylvania). I had originally planted 15 and 20, respectively, but one of the hardnecks split and produced two heads.
I will air-dry them on the porch (away from the sun) for a couple of days and then hang them in my back hallway to cure until the leaves are completely dry and the hardneck stalks very firm. This typically takes about two weeks for the softnecks and three weeks for the hardnecks. I will then clean them, remove all dirt and the very outer papery layer, trim the stalks of the hardnecks and braid the softnecks. But not before I put the largest heads aside as seed garlic for the fall.
I also planted shallots this spring, but only three of the many I planted grew. Not sure what went wrong.
Last week, my daughter brought tons of garlic scapes back from work and made two cups of pesto – one for the freezer and one that we have been using up all week. There were still quite a few scapes left (around 20), and I decided to turn them into garlic scape powder. I have never done this before, so it was an exciting new project.
First, I washed and dried the scapes. I then cut off the flower buds and chopped the stems into 1 cm long (about 1/2 inch) pieces. I placed them in a single layer on a baking sheet and dried them in the oven at 150F. I checked every 45 minutes to an hour and turned them. After quite some time (4 hours and 45 minutes, the last 45 minutes at 170F), they were completely dry and brittle. I then let them cool and blitzed them in a mini food processor. Those 20 scapes yielded around 3 tablespoons. Not a whole lot, but it smells divine, so I think it is very potent.
I have been taking pottery classes at JP Clay since February. Here are a few recent combos of hand-picked flowers and herbs (from the backyard or community plot) and my hand-made creations.
I harvested all four heads of my Black Seeded Simpson as they started to show early signs of bolting. I still have four other lettuce types growing: Salanova Green Butter, Merlot, Johnny’s Allstar Gourmet Lettuce Mix, and Sandy Hill Preservation Center lettuce mix. Salad for dinner tonight!
Yesterday, I finally put my sweet potato in the ground. Fingers crossed this will be a successful experiment and the bunnies will leave it alone.