Shallots ‘n Onions
The sweet onions are all pulled now; most have sufficiently dried/cured and are bagged up ready to hang in the cellar stairwell (bottom left of the picture). Overall they were smaller than I hoped but are sweeter than anything I imagined I would get. (The garlic won’t be far behind; it has been ready to sort by size but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.)
The potato onions are out ( 3 more of the larger ones evaded the picture). Eat the big ones, plant the small ones this fall and start over. I like these; the modest harvest below came from 5 or 6 scrappy little seed onions planted last fall.
About 2/3 of the shallots are pulled and drying now (shallots are all but the far right in the cart).
Lawnmower shed = shallot curing shack
The shallots still in the ground are pretty large; much larger than last year’s crop:
When the regular “storage” onions are all pulled, I will be faced with deciding what to do with the space. A good problem to have (finally), this surplus of garden space.
Rice vs Weeds
In this my first (and possibly last) foray into backyard rice growing, I have been watching with interest as the experiment progresses.
The lower “plugged” paddy is growing quite well now. Unless my liner has been punctured (unlikely), these plants slurp up an impressive amount of water. There is 3″-4″ of water that covers the soil when the paddy is full; this is completely absorbed and transpired every 2-3 days now that it is getting warm (and the plants are getting large).
I’m no doctor of riceology but these plants look pretty healthy to me:
Each plant sprouted a single stalk initially; as they have grown each plant has continued to add additional stalks. So far, 8-10 per plant seems to be the average.
Rice doesn’t have to grow in water; it apparently will get along pretty well in “just soggy” soil. But rice “doesn’t play well with others” and does better if it doesn’t have to compete with weeds for the moisture it thrives upon.
So why go to the trouble of building a paddy that will actually hold water? Besides the satisfying the high moisture requirements of rice, your typical weeds won’t grow in water.
So what gardener would mind a bed or two in their garden that by default are 100% weed free? Well, I’m fine with this idea. 😉
Not a weed in the whole plot:
Vegestock
My sister in law, who is fairly early into her vegan journey, asked me over the weekend if I had ever pulled from my garden to make a good vegetable stock. I had to admit that I hadn’t although I had been meaning to experiment in that area for some time.
So two days later I decided “now”, with a bounty of fresh onions, shallots, garlic and herbs, was as good a time as any to do it.
So- the ingredients, (from memory):
2 small heads of fresh garlic, with cloves peeled and “bruised” but whole
4 or 5 small shallots, unpeeled and cut in half
1 medium yellow onion, unpeeled and cut into quarters
4 carrots (two large and two wimpy) unpeeled and cut into 1 inch sections
4 celery stalks cut into 1 inch sections (this was purchased at supermarket, so the stock isn’t entirely from the garden
a couple of small seeded and quartered “sheepnose” pimento peppers I had previously harvested and frozen
a couple or three stems of flat leaf parsley with leaves attached
a couple of stems of rosemary
a few strands of fresh thyme
a stem of fresh oregano for the hell of it
6 or 8 whole peppercorns
a teaspoon of sea salt
3 bay leaves
3 whole “tommie toe” tomatoes
I preheated the oven on “convection roast” 425 degrees. In the meantime I spread the cut vegetables and herbs in a roasting pan and drizzled with a tablespoon of olive oil and tossed around a bit.
I roasted them for about 25 minutes, opening the oven every 8 or 10 minutes to toss the contents of the pan around some more.
On the stove top I warmed some water, 3 or 4 quarts, and added the salt, bay leaves and peppercorns (I also added another fresh stem of parsley and a touch more fresh rosemary). When the roasting was over, I poured the charred and partially caramelized contents into the pot and de-glazed the roasting pan with about 1/2 cup of white wine (and of course added this to the pot as well.)
Once the pot came to a boil I reduced to a simmer and after almost one hour removed it from the heat to cool for a while.
The pre-roast of the contents darkened the stock:
Finally I strained the stock through a fine mesh sieve (a tea strainer actually, it worked very well).
Presto, roughly 2 quarts of concentrated vegetable stock ready to refrigerate overnight while I decide what new soup project this go into:
I believe it will keep a couple days as is just fine; I’ll probably freeze it in half pint or pint sized containers until I need it.
Overall it smells like a success- very flavorful with a nice base color. It didn’t make much, but it is concentrated enough to add an equal amount of water to reach the called for quantity in most recipes.
Marcie, I’ll let you know how it tastes. 😉
A Berry Good Breakfast
A cup of coffee and a dawn harvest of berries isn’t a bad way to start a day.
Some of these on a cup or so of cold Dannon vanilla yogurt probably is as healthy as I can do it @ breakfast.
(Even if someone brought in a box of Bojangles sausage, steak and chicken biscuits to the office the same morning.)
(No I didn’t eat a biscuit.)
(Amazingly.)
Rice. Corn. Garlic.
In reverse order……
I trimmed the garlic up and will finish sorting and cleaning tomorrow. A decent haul this year, less than last year though (on purpose). Note the pile of garlic roots on the bottom 2 steps. Aromatic.
I grew a tiny amount of heirloom “Blue Jade” corn last year and saved 99% of it for seed this year. I believe I had 100% germination on what I planted too.
This is mini-corn, only 2-3 feet tall with multiple ears per plant that are maybe 5 inches long. It was tasty enough, sweet but not super sugary sweet like the modern hybrids.
From Seed Savers Exchange
Anyhow, I planted it much tighter this year since it is so small, hopefully the pollination/fill out on the ears will be better.
And the rice, well, it is growing like a weed now.
(That on the left in the upper paddy was direct seeded at the time I transplanted the plants into the lower paddy. It is healthy, just a little behind the lower bunch.)
Clueless Raspberries
2012 is the first season with raspberry canes growing behind the fence.
Last winter I prepared a raised bed with a core from the remnant pieces of the 6′ rotted maple stump that had been a corner of a fugly storage shed (that has been replaced with something more suited to Mrs cohutt’s eye.)
Into this bed four “Heritage” raspberry plants were tucked in along with mulch and a drip irrigation line to keep them happy.
Following the somewhat vague guidance from various state agriculture bulletins, I constructed a sturdy two wire “T” trellis system for support.
As the canes came to life, I searched for pictures showing what a bed of Heritage raspberries might look like inside of a properly dimensioned “T” trellis system. There were a few, but with the massive number of canes that come up in an established bed, the pictures just looked like a mass of modestly contained chaos.
Once my new canes came up I panicked and lowered the height of both wires; now I am contemplating raising them again if I can. It appears that I significantly misjudged the ultimate length of the canes- I figured 5 feet might be about right but these just keep growing.
I “tipped” the main canes two or three weeks back to promote lateral growth, which seems to be working well. Still, what a tangle of thorny canes.
If anyone has experience with raspberries, especially “Heritage”, and the proper trellis system for them, I’m all ears.
Blackberries
Blackberries…..
As big as a dog’s head.
(A very small dog)
A closer look suggests this claim is slightly exaggerated.
Big just the same…. 😉
Solitude @ Millsap
I enjoy spending time alone @ the mountain property on occasion; the serenity of the mountains compares rather favorably to the constant series of interruptions known as “my real life”.
So….
I poked around a little when I arrived Friday evening to see if there was anything new since I was last there.
I think someone is feeding the fish in the pond; this healthy little bass followed me half way around it presumably looking for a handout of some sort.
Damsels are everywhere along the creek bottom.
As it has warmed up the wild hogs are boldly bringing their wallows out into the open again.
I spent most of Saturday repairing the tractor wiring AGAIN after mice built a nest in the tool compartment AGAIN and decided to chew through the wires AGAIN. (I had done all of this once before in 2009. After all the connections were checked, I entombed the entire compartment forever by filling it with “Good Stuff” expanding foam insulation. I don’t want to go for a third attempt @ rewiring.)
So I eventually bush-hogged some, things were looking a little shaggy @ the top of the southern pasture ;).
I woke up to rain this morning; very pleasant although not conducive to bush-hogging that is particularly comfortable or efficient. Trying to wait it out, I read for a while sprawled in the porch swing then gave up and decided to hike to the top of the mountain in the rain.
I stayed relatively dry under the poncho; up on the the ridge the scraggly old hardwoods were immersed in a light fog. It was quiet and a little eerie (the pictures don’t do it justice but here you are anyway):
I came down the south trail and on the way back to the cabin stopped briefly to partake in a little barn-envy. (This is the barn our new neighbor built last year. You will not be seeing pictures of my barn shed.)
By the time I returned to the cabin the weather looked like it was improving although the top of the mountain was still in the mist. From the cabin:
Sure enough, by the time I got the tractor around to the south pastures the rain returned; I made some progress but eventually abandoned hopes of finishing as the bottom fell out again.
Regardless, a good dose of solitude every now and then is NOT overrated.
Post Apocalyptic Kale?
Good lord, this stuff grows.
The more we pick away at it, top it, or cut it off at the ankles, the more we seem to have.
If Kroger evaporated tomorrow and I had to feed myself strictly from what could be grown behind the fence here, Kale might be the savior.
I guess we were just accustomed to our winter spinach and turnip green patches, which provided generous and steady supplies of greens over the winter before last but were eventually depleted by the time spring approached. A couple of cuts and the plants were done.
This Winterbor kale just grows exponentially by comparison.
These plants were seeded last August and have actually been “well grazed” since mid December.
(A dusty boot for scale:)
But that’s chump change compared to these:
So here is the offer:
Friends and family, please let me know it you would like a trunk load of kale, pre-apocalyptic as it is. I will share and can use the space.
Behind cohutt's fence 