Sunday, October 18, 2015

Unusual Eats

One advantage about growing your own food is that you get to eat things that you would rarely or never find in a grocery store.

Once in a while, I harvest a head of garlic that turns out to be all one clove. I love these! I wish I could grow them on purpose, but I celebrate each one that happens to show up in my garden soil.

Did you know that garlic roots are just as delicious as the cloves, only more tender?

And of course there are garlic scapes... this photo was taken earlier in the summer when the scapes were going crazy. I love the tangled spirals they create in my kitchen. I fermented them this year and that was essentially a food of the gods...

Armenian cucumber from the cucumber tipi

Nosy tomato

Gargantuan kohlrabi, so good in soups

  
And speaking of soups... the carrots that were planted in cold frames in the first week of March got rather large! (yes, that is my hand, not my child's)

And kind of crazy!

So I am cooking the monster carrots up, putting them through the food processor, and freezing them in bags, since they do not appear to have storage potential. This way they are ready for soup anytime. Three carrots made almost a gallon of puree. (Shown here are 1/2 gallon jars used for chilling the carrot and kale puree before bagging for the freezer.)

Yum!

I also dehydrated a lot of kale for mixing in with mashed potatoes this winter: a traditional side dish from the Netherlands --Boerenkool -- or as we would say when we were growing up, "Green potatoes! Yay!"



Sunday, October 4, 2015

Autumn Rainbow


We often think of rainbows in spring, but the fall garden has its own rainbows too! I thought it might be nice to just offer a color splash without a lot of words... 


Red

Swiss Chard

Blueberry leaves

 
Black Cohosh leaves


Orange

Fawn is at the age where pumpkin carving is still a thrill, but she is old enough to do it completely by herself. With volunteer pumpkins all over the garden, this should be a decorative autumn! She might even carve up the Atlantic Giant...


Yellow

Maximilian Sunflower (perennial)

Honeyboat squash, ready to dig in


Green

"Dwarf" curly leaf kale

And still some new Armenian cucumbers forming in the tipi, in October!


Blue

Incredible skies over the Wood for Food garden


Purple

Potatoes -- like an Easter egg hunt


  
Russian Kale and Johnny Jump-ups (I'm not the only one enjoying these petals)



Enjoy this amazing time of year!