What are You Eating from the Garden?

[Branching Out]

Then I made the pumpkin and purple rice, coleslaw with microgreen, and pork chops.

Phaedra, do you have a trick for frying pork chops so that they are tender once cooked? So often mine are tough like shoe leather, unless I braise them in the crock pot.

 

[Marie2020]

All of my compost stored from last year is alive with nasty tiny black flies. I messed up by planting my rose plant in the stuff. I've used garlic peppermint all sorts and they won't go away.

I can't use this festered yuk out in my back garden for fear they will infest my two old chickens, so I'll put it out the front and add sand to it and just pray

 

[digitS']

Baked squash ... from the basement shelves.

It's the last of the squash

The above is from April 19, 2022.

I had baked squash today with lunch and we have pumpkin (Winter squash) yeast bread just out of the oven!

Curious how late squash was available off the basement shelves since I began my curing efforts so I checked back to that 2022 post. I had no idea that simply leaving them seperated in a protected area outdoors after harvest for several days would add so much to their storage life. There's little doubt that the recent hot, dry Summers also contribute so this wasn't such a good trial but ... I'll take what I can get!

It used to be that the end of January was about all I could expect - not into April!

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

a good cure, dry and warm enough to callous over any fresh marks from harvesting.

 

[Dahlia]

cooking up two pots of beans (10 lbs of dry beans). they smell good already.

I love pressure cooking pinto beans and then making homemade chili with them! Yum! So much better than canned!

 

[digitS']

I remember reading about curing Winter squash on the North Carolina State University website years ago - advice for commercial growers.

It didn't make a lot of sense. I imagined a truckload piled in a barn. The advice to not leave them in the field until after frost made sense and was put into practice. When the risk of frost becomes too high and I don't have time to harvest, I will cover them with cut corn stalks.

Finally decided to take a 2 or 3 step route to move them to the basement. First, onto a pallet and not touching in the carport. If it may freeze hard enough to freeze in there - into the garage. In there, the squash (and pumpkins) are sitting on a wood floor. Giving them 5-7 days - I think that drying of the cut stems and soil-side skin is important. Final move, basement shelves.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

freeze damage is the problem i sometimes have to worry about as the garage is not heated. when it gets later in the fall i bring the squash inside but they are not in the best of locations but it is the best we can do here. sitting on the floor by the front door.

we are just finishing off the last of the squash i froze from the last round of processing. it's really good. (a blend of the kabochas and hubbard).

 

[ducks4you]

DD FINALLY broke open the packaged sweet peppers that I froze last year. You can REALLY taste the difference in the stuff she is cooking.
"Fresh" from the grocery store doesn't taste as good as fresh frozen.

 

[Branching Out]

Yesterday we unloaded our first bulk load of the season-- a mix of topsoil, sand, and compost. We had borrowed the neighbours wheelbarrow and managed to break the handle off of it, so this morning I made a sour cream rhubarb cake and shared it with them as a peace offering.

 

[digitS']

We should be able to have rhubarb cake soon, @Branching Out . DW likes rhubarb pie, with or without the strawberries. We have rhubarb upside down cake sometimes. I think that expanding her culinary horizons is in order .

Bok Choy from the hoop house for lunch. That and some mustard greens were harvested. More bok choy plants going into those beds, today.

There's a Little Smokey in with the greens, Steelhead and rice make the meal .

Steve