Final Harvest

Well, then.

Our grand growing experiment has come to an end for this year and it's time to put the veggie bed to bed.

We've plucked off the last of the tomatoes, pulled up the final carrots and harvested the potatoes at last (more on that in a sec). Our busy little bed has gone from this:

To this:

(That's my niece, Sydney, picking tomatoes.)

And now, to this:

Failures:

• Strawberries (killed two sets of plants)
• Mail order tomatoes (4 died)
• Touchon carrots (they grew but we didn't like them)
• Sweet potatoes

Very disappointed in our Beauregard sweet potatoes. We were hoping for big, scrumptious suckers like these:

But instead, after months of waiting and drooling, we got these:

Seriously.

You're supposed to 'cure' sweet potatoes in a warm, humid place for two weeks or so, to give their skin time to heal ('cause it looks so delicate, don'tcha know), and for the starches to convert to sugars and get all sweet.

Um.

They're curing, but...they're rather frightening to behold. I'm thinking we carve 'em up and stick 'em out on Halloween night.

Successes:

• Tomatoes (I'm going with Family Tree Nursery transplants again next year. Sun Sugars are awesome.)
• Corn (limited harvest but amazing flavor)
• Lettuce (I didn't do a great job of keeping the harvest going, but it was good while it lasted)
• Purple Dragon carrots (good taste, beautiful color)
• Fingerling potatoes (moderate success. Didn't produce very many, but they were good.)
• French green beans

Without a doubt, the green beans were an outstanding success. The girls are begging for more. We've tried the frozen haricort verts, but - meh. Not the same as picked fresh from the garden. And I just can't bring myself to buy the canned stuff anymore.

Next year we'll try some new yummies. I may be able to talk the fam into trying peas. I'm fascinated by Thomas Jefferson's annual pea growing contest with his neighbors. They supposedly had around 32 different varieties to taste!

I'll be back in the spring to chronicle our growing adventures next year.

I'll leave you with a recipe that impressed my kids and my non-veggie lovin' hubbie. These will work on good old store bought carrots, but we did it with the last of our home-grown beauties.

Enjoy!

Honey-Vanilla Glazed Carrots

8 ounces baby carrots (or sliced grown-up carrots)

1 1/2 tablespoons honey

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar

pinch of salt

Put it all in a saute pan over medium-high heat, carrots in a single layer.

Let simmer until the pan is almost dry.

Try not to smack your lips too loudly while eating.

How Does My Garden Grow...?

Meet Poppy. This is the baby bunny we rescued from a neighbor's window well. And the reason we built the veggie bed 20 inches high. He lives in the wood pile next to the veggie bed and stares at it, cursing his short little legs. Muwahahahaha!!!

But I digress.

I knew I'd slacked off the blog a bit - but 2 months?! Holy compost, Batman! And to think I've kept you all waiting so long, just hoping to find out the latest tomato turmoil and corn

crisis...

What? Not really? You haven't been angsting over the arugala?

Neither have I. As the summer has been flying by, the veggies have been flying upwards with very little effort from me.

One day the bed looked like this:

And, 60 or 70 days later, it looks like this:

Oh and this:

Those are the Swedish Fingerling potatoes on the left and the sweet potatoes on the right.

Apparently, potatoes wreak havoc on the soil and surrounding plants, so we're growing them in highly chic black trash barrels.

We've been able to start enjoying the veggies of our labor, which is a treat. We've had lettuce, which I can't seem to find a picture of, and these lovelies:

The tomato plants I ordered all died, so I went to

Family Tree Nursery and picked up some replacements. All cherry tomatoes, but different types with things like "Honey" and "Candy" in their names. (Oh, and some Italian whites that haven't fruited yet.) The few we've had have been very yummy.

The green beans - oh the green beans! French Filets

- and man are they good! (These can cost you a pretty penny in one of them high falutin' restaurants.) Harper hates green beans and says these "aren't bad." And Rick - not a bean lover at all - actually likes them.

We did a side-by-side taste test of our babies and the standard canned variety. Both lightly tossed in a little butter. The Filets were vibrant green color and tasted so fresh and "green, but in a good way," as Rick put it. No contest! After a slow start, these little bean bushes are putting out a goodly amount of beans each day. I have people looking forward to eating green beans, folks!

The corn isn't as high as an elephant's eye - yet - but it's getting up there. Here are some beauty shots of these Maple Sugar delights:

(Harper pointed out the pretty water beads on the corn silk this morning.)

The carrots look nice and bushy, hopefully we'll be able to eat them soon. We tried one of the Touchon carrots today:

They should be ready to harvest any day now, but this little guy was far short of the 6 inches in length it's supposed to be. The girls thought the flavor was ok. I took a bite - and felt like Tom Hanks' character tasting caviar in "Big." Bitter bitter bitter!! I tried to set a decent example for the girls by not spitting them out into the yard - a difficult feat. Harper ran and got me a chocolate mint leaf to get rid of the bad taste. Oh man, I hope these things get better!

Other than that, our grand experiment is going grandly. I've planted a 3rd round of lettuce and a second round of carrots, so we can keep enjoying veggies into the early fall.

Here's a tasty way to enjoy fresh green beans - don't try this with filets, they'll turn into little bits of charcoal. But you can grab a pound of fresh beans from the grocery store or farmer's market and try this. Very tasty.

Roasted Green Beans

An aluminum foil liner prevents burning on dark nonstick baking sheets and makes for easy clean up.

Serves 4

1 pound green beans, stem ends snapped off

1 tablespoon olive oil

table salt and ground black pepper.

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 450 degrees. Spread beans on lined baking sheet. Drizzle with oil; using hands, toss evenly. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt, toss to coat, and distribute in even layer. Roast 10 minutes.

2. Remove baking sheet from oven. Using tongs, redistribute beans. Continue roasting until beans are dark golden brown in spots and have started to shrivel, about 10 - 12 minutes longer.

3. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper; transfer to serving bowl and stuff your face.

One Step Closer

Over the weekend we started sod busting to make room for the vegetable bed. Harper rescued worms from the sod

and helped her dad sort lumber. 

Ricki said we needed to figure out how much usable cedar we had left over from the tree house and how much we needed to buy to build the raised bed. When he started muttering numbers, I pretended I had sod in my ears and wandered off, wisely leaving the calculations to him.

He's keeping the girls busy tricking out the tree house over spring break - but those sneaky petes were up to something else today. I came home from work and found that the 3 of them had done this:

Do I have a cool family, or what? All we need is a burrow-proof screen for the bottom and a lot of dirt and we'll be ready to get going.

I did a walk-about of the whole yard and found the first signs of my other culinary treasures peeking up into the late afternoon sun.

Chives

Lemon Thyme

In honor of St. Patrick's day and our garden-to-be (which will include potatoes), here's a recipe for Skillet Roasted Potatoes with Lemon and Chives. 

(I believe this is from Cook's Illustrated, May 2005)

For even cooking and proper browning, the potatoes must be cooked in a single layer and should not be crowded in the pan, so be sure to use a heavy-duty 12-inch skillet. 

Serves 3 - 4

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

2 Tablespoons minced fresh chives

1 1/2 pounds Red Bliss potatoes, small or medium, scrubbed and unpeeled

2 Tablespoons olive oil

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. Combine lemon zest and chives in small bowl.

2. If using small potatoes (1 1/2- to 2-inch diameter), halve each potato. If using medium 92- to 3-inch diameter), quarter each potato to create 3/4 to 1-inch chunks. Rinse potatoes in cold water and drain well; spread on clean kitchen towel and thoroughly pat dry.

3. Heat oil in heavy-bottomed 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add potatoes cut side down in single layer; cook, without stirring, until golden brown (oil should sizzle but not smoke), 5 - 7 minutes. Using tongs, turn potatoes skin side down if using halved potatoes, or second cut side down if using medium; cook, without stirring, until deep golden brown, 5 - 6 minutes longer. Stir potatoes, then redistribute in single layer. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook until potatoes are tender (paring knife can be inserted into potatoes with no resistance), 6 - 9 minutes.

4. When potatoes are tender, sprinkle with salt, pepper and lemon chive mixture, and toss or stir gently to combine. Serve immediately.