What are You Eating from the Garden?

[digitS']

@flowerbug ,

The dill fragrance is what I like. We eat salmon now and then with dill leaves. Or, a little goes in a salad.

Stronger flavors are more acceptable to you. Sure, I eat parsley while in the garden. Dill, out there, is just to carry around in my shirt pocket. Somehow, it seems to inspire and motivate .

Steve

 

[digitS']

Radish seed pod!

Taste, enjoy -- if you have not tried these, you will likely be surprised. Take the smallest, most-tender and work your way towards the larger and older seed pods. You will learn at what stage that the pods become coarse.

I bet that radish pods would be a good addition to @baymule 's jalapeno carrot and onion recipe . Yep.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Radish seed pod!

Taste, enjoy -- if you have not tried these, you will likely be surprised. Take the smallest, most-tender and work your way towards the larger and older seed pods. You will learn at what stage that the pods become coarse.

I bet that radish pods would be a good addition to @baymule 's jalapeno carrot and onion recipe . Yep.

Steve

the seeds can be edible too if you like them.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Lettuce, kale and collards. I need to start putting some of it in the freezer.

 

[seedcorn]

Peas, lettuce and spinach. I have one zucchini ready and a yellow squash coming on.

 

[digitS']

DW harvested a basket full of kale leaves, yesterday. She has them on the kitchen table this morning, pushed into a big bowl with plastic bag over the top holding the overflow in place. She says that she intends to freeze them. This will be something new. I have suggested blanching them first and will likely have to help her with that.

We may have to do that with broccoli, also. DW will have to overcome her disregard for frozen vegetables but has, at least, come up with this plan to freeze kale on her own. It will be our first experience with kale but I'm confident that the broccoli will be fine.

We had to drive by the big veggie garden yesterday afternoon and stopped. It wasn't showering rain at that moment. The first planting of broccoli aren't very big but had more nice heads, ready for cutting. I've lost my stickers. I've grown Packman for many years but tried Early Dividend in 2019. It seemed about the same. This year, I have both - one reason for so many plants. I really have no idea which is which and the very cool weather right now must be just right for broccoli.

I picked 2 snap peas and 1 snow pea ... yeah. They seem to be putting their energy into growing instead of maturing the pods. I have a feeling that those will all come on with a HUGE rush! The vines are still blooming so it looks like a very good pea year. I'm not in the least apprehensive about freezing some.

Impatient for the peas. The weather has been such that greens have been plentiful. The escarole seed was late to be planted but it won't be long for us to have amaranth for the table. @Eleanor will have to forgive me for only having one mess of lambsquarters. I'm having problems getting past all the Asian greens and every thing else!

Steve
who has never frozen a bok choy ...

 

[Prairie Rose]

I have a couple of new potatoes where I dug a potato plant to see if they were ready. Going to cook them up for lunch later, and top with an egg and maybe a few slices of fried green tomatoes if I can find a tomato big enough to make the mess worth my time. I also have some green onions, hot wax peppers, and no-heat-jalapenos on the counter to use in the enchiladas for dinner tonight.

By next week I should have my first cucumber and zucchini, and hopefully the earliest of my tomatoes will be ripe!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have suggested blanching them first and will likely have to help her with that.

I don't know how you eat your kale, I always boil mine, either as a side dish or when I put it in soup. Once you freeze it cooked is pretty much how you need to use it, It is no good fresh. You like soup, could be a way forward for you.

I always blanch kale before I freeze it, I think abut 2-1/2 minutes. Supposedly that stops the enzymes from causing it to degrade but another big advantage is that it greatly reduces the volume. Once I take it out of the ice bath I squeeze the water out of it and use those vacuum bags to freeze it.

 

[digitS']

That sounds do-able, @Ridgerunner . I was just looking at a U of Minnesota guide.

Usually, the kale is stir-fried. Yes, I like soup. We may shred a little Scotch kale but it is Portuguese kale that is the best - imo. I'm watching the Siberian kale very suspiciously because the aphids like it so well. It made it through 2019 well and I like it.

DW has tossed those and Italian kale together in that basket. I hope she plans to separate them, maybe I can have something to do with that. I'm off to get some ice ready ...

Steve

 

[Prairie Rose]

Harvested a sink full of swiss chard to go with dinner tonight, so looking forward to steamed greens tonight!