Harvesting and using garlic scapes

Late spring is the time when you can find garlic scapes at the farmers market, or if you grow garlic you get an extra crop.  The scape is the seed head that emerges from the center of the garlic leaf stalk on hardneck varieties.  If left in its place it will flower, and produce bulbils (small clove like seeds).  There is a debate among garlic growers as to whether or not removing the scape will produce a larger bulb or not.  In my personal experience I have not seen a difference between a garlic bulb with or without the scape being removed.  If you choose to remove them you can cut them off with a knife or simply pull directly up on the scape and it will break off where it wants to break off and now you can get excited over the size of the scape you can pull out!!Or unreasonably upset when you get a small one.

That being said what do you do with a garlic scape now that you have it.  We use the scapes the same way you use garlic to season any dish, but the scape can also be used as a vegetable, as it has the texture of asparagus.  Scapes are excellent simply grilled with olive oil and sea salt, or eaten raw finely diced on a salad.

This is a fresh pea and mint salad with garlic scapes.  Scapes are also a great topping on white pizza, just leave them whole and lay across the pizza, or made into a savory jelly.  I use the  Ball Blue Book garlic jelly recipe and replace the garlic cloves with garlic scapes. 

Scapes are also popular as the key ingredient in a Pesto alternative, here is my recipe for Garlic scape and Lambs quarter pesto.

Garlic Scape and Lambs Quarter Pesto*

2 Cups lambs quarter leaves*

1 Cup basil

1/2 Cup toasted walnuts

1/2 Cup grated parmesan cheese

1 dozen garlic scapes

1/4 Cup olive oil

black pepper to taste

enough water to start blender.

Rinse lambs quarter, basil, and scapes and roughly chop.
Toast walnuts.
Add all ingredients to blender with enough water to get it blending, blend until smooth, add more water or oil as necessary.

This yields about 1 pint of pesto concentrate, I put mine into small jars and freeze for later use.  When I want to use some I reheat it with more olive oil and top pasta or grilled summer vegetables.

* Lambs quarter also known as goosefoot is a wild relative of spinach, so spinach could be used as a replacement.

So if you grow your own garlic or see scapes at your local farmers market, don't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen with this unique and seasonal product.

-John

Make your yard a money maker, not a money pit...

So just a reminder of our situation, we grow stuff at Johns parents house an hour away and stuff in our yard.  Our yard is less than 1/4 acre but you would be amazed to the all the stuff we jam pack into it!  In fact, most of our produce has been coming from our yard the last couple of markets.  Most people dump a bunch of money into flowers for their yards and mulching and weed killer and bug killer and landscaping etc..  I am way to cheap to even consider that, so we just plant all edible plants.  The only thing we have that isn't edible are our holly bushes, but those provide decoration for Christmas time so they are OK in my book (John can't stand them and wants to tear them out for their lack of usefulness, but I love Christmas so I win.). 

Their has been a lot of buzz about the Julie Bass and Oak Park MI stuff (if you are a hermit who has been living in the woods for two weeks and this is your first chance to get on a computer and you stumbled upon my blog as the first page you visited then you can find info on that here).  I for one this that every human should have the right to supply their own healthy supply of food.  Anyways, I really hate talking politics so I will stop there.  Here are some pics of what we are growing in our yard this year...

This is our amaranth we planted out front.  Amaranth is a grain, related to Lamb's Quarter.  It doesn't need hulled which is a plus since we do not have anything to hull grain with.  The leaves are also edible and can be used like spinach.  I was afraid it was going to get knocked down by a really bad storm we had the other day, but I think the fence helped protect it.  Not sure when the seed heads will grow but I will keep you posted.

This is calendula growing in front of the house with the holly bushes behind it.  Is that a tree seedling in there?  Whoops!  As you can see it is a rather sprawling plant, but the flowers are pretty!

Ground cherries growing on the side of our house.  They are a really tasty fruit, and I am hoping to have enough to can some pie filling.

Here is one of our Jack Be Little pumpkin plants growing in the side yard.  We have two mounds but it was super weedy so I didn't want to take a picture and embarrass myself!  They are a compact plant and are great for small spaces.  I think the vines only reach about 4 ft.  They are super productive and we are hoping that we can give pumpkins away at my son's Halloween party.

We also try and shove things in every available space.  These mini basil plants fit perfectly here!  BTW, those crappy looking logs are blocking our dog from escaping the yard.  We are just classy like that ;)

Here is the strawberry bed in our side yard.  Our house used to be a duplex and this was where the stairs to the upstairs apartment were.  It is the perfect spot for our strawberries!

These are our sunchokes which didn't survive the storm so well, hence the string holding them up.  Unfortunately for our neighbors they won't be ready to harvest for at least another month or two!

This is rhubarb, rainbow chard, and fish pepper on the other side of our porch.  The rhubarb has been really productive this year, I actually have enough frozen to make jelly for once :)

Here are some pole beans growing up the fence in our back garden.  Note the compost in the trash can being held together with a bit of WV steel (another example of our classiness!).  Pole beans are amazing in small spaces.  They will climb up any fence or trellis and you will get a ton from just a couple of plants.

Here is our popping corn growing in our other garden in the backyard.  I can't wait to harvest this!  It is multi-colored and I think the kids will love it :)

Here is our kale, rainbow chard, beets, and carrots in the back garden.  The chard is also a great crop for small spaces.  It is ornamental, produces over a long period of time, and is very productive.  I read one blogger who said she harvested 40 lbs of chard from 4 plants!!!!

There is so much more I would have taken pictures of if it hadn't been for the weeds!  In my defence we got about 6 inches of rain followed by high temps and I swear the weeds doubled in size!  With the price of food and safety issues with food from huge factory farms with not so great conditions, I think everyone should grow as much of their own food as possible!

New produce and preserving the garden's abundance...

We spent about 7 hours at the farm yesterday and the garden is really in full swing now.  I am always surprised at how fast our cuc's and squash grow, but this year has been crazy so far!  I actually bought
some yucky old cuc's at the store because I wasn't expecting to have any until next week.  We are trying a new variety this year called Poona Keera.  It is an Indian heirloom and is really fantastic.  Not only is it early, but supposedly it never gets bitter.  It has a firm and tasty flavor.  The only bad thing would be the skins get a little tough as they get older so they are best picked when white or yellow.  Here is a pic of them...

We are pretty well prepared for the "Why are you bringing bad cucumbers to market" comments (I would have been among those people 4 or 5 years ago!).  Thankfully our regular customers are some pretty cool cats who are OK with trying some unusual stuff.  I think they look cool as heck!  The whiter one has a less tough skin.  You can see a little brown on the ends, but it is still tender.  The ones in back taste great as well, the skin just needs peeled.  Supposedly if you let them go they will turn all brown and look like a potato.  The texture is really firm, almost like a zucchini that tastes like a cucumber so we think they will make great pickles. 

We also harvested a bushel of chard for market this Saturday.  That is the most we have harvested so far, and we sold a lot of it but had some left over.  I really didn't want to waste it so John made some quick refrigerator pickles from them.  He didn't season them at all, as I do not like pickled beets seasoned, just vinegar and a very tiny amount of sugar.

I can't wait to eat these on salads and sandwiches!  We forgot (again) to take pics of the garden while we were up there but we are going up again this week so I will do my best to remember.  The difference between the garden now and a month ago is incredible!  I will leave you with a pic of our garlic harvest this year.  Some of them are cut off, but most of them are in the pic (please ignore the messy yard and un-weeded yard! Lol!)

Summer garden update...

We have been very busy lately with the garden and market.  After a weird spring, things seem to be coming along nicely now.  Even our spring stuff didn't do too bad.  Right now we mostly have scapes and rainbow chard.  We might have a few radishes to take tomorrow but we won't know until we go up to the farm tonight.  I saw some ripe berries the other day so I am hoping we will have some.  At least enough for us ;)  We also had some new potatoes last week which were sooo tasty.  Everything homegrown tastes better than the store bought stuff!  We have been keeping up on the weeds pretty good this year.  Honestly weeding our garden is like trying to cut your lawn with a pair of scissors.  It is so big and there are just soooo many weeds.  So it doesn't look perfect, but it isn't too bad either.  Here are some pics of the garden...

None of the pictures really do justice to the size of the garden this year.  It is twice as big as last year.  It actually goes down smll hill so there is quite a bit you can't see in this picture.

These are the peppers and okra.  Usually peppers don't do well at the farm because of the soil, but this year we put down some compost and they are already bigger then they have ever been before.  The okra was started waaaay too early but is really doing great.  "They" say okra doesn't do well when transplanted but these are doing wonderfully.  We have already harvested a handful so hopefully we will have more when we go up today because everyone in our family likes okra.  We use newspaper and straw as mulch to help keep in the moisture and discourage weeds.  When you mulch like this you get a whole little micro world of beneficial bacteria and bugs that help the plants and soil.

Here are the potatoes.  You can't see most of the plants because of the straw, but there are quite a few of them.  We are trying some new varities this year so we are excited to see how they do.

Here is where we direct seeded our squash plants.  We are doing successive plantings all the way up the length of the garden.  We have pumpkins, summer squash, winter squash, cucs, and watermelons here.  We planted them waaay closer then we should have because we really lacked the space we needed.  We probably won't be able to get to anything once it all starts growing!

Here is the tomato patch where we have just shy of 200 different heirloom tomato plants.  We started them way to early as well and I really thought they would all die they were so sickly when we put them in the ground.  I actually bought about 10 more plants from our favorite nursery so I could be sure we would have tomatoes for ourselves.  Thankfully they all look great!  Alrighty enough chatting, lots to do before market tomorrow!

Spring Garden Update 2011...

What a rainy spring we have had!  Well rainy and cold.  The cold has been harder on the plants than the rain I think, although our first srop of radish seeds did get pulverized into the ground by a nice heavy spring rain we had.  We went up to the farm today to check and the radishes we planted last week are twice as big and had much better germination rate than the radishes we planted a month ago.  That is the gamble you take when you plant early.  Sometimes you get a great crop and sometimes you get nothing.  I am not a big gambler, but in this particular situation I think it is worth the gamble ;)  We gathered more big field rocks from the farmer's field today.  You can read about this from last year here.  We are putting some new flower beds in the front yard.  The rocks we gathered today will be the border around that bed.

We planted some of our favorite lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson at the beginning of this month.  As you can see they are still very small.  March was so cold, they never really got a good start until the last couple of weeks.  We are hoping to have some by the 2nd or 3rd farmers market.  We like this lettuce so much because it is fairly bolt resistent, and is one of the last lettuces to get bitter.

Here are our two year old Starbor Kale plants from last year.  They over-wintered well.  I think we ony lost 3 plants this winter.  Not only are we getting a large amount of Kale from them, but they should so to seed this year and we can collect our own seed frm them.  This kale has really great flavor.  Much better in my opinion than Dinosaur Kale or Red Russian.  This kale is also good used fresh.  I like to use it in turkey wraps or fresh salads, or it canned be cooked and eaten on rice or pasta.

Here are the seedlings of the red romaine lettuce that we got for free from Baker Creek Seeds, one of our favorite seed companies.  They include one free seed packet with your purchase.  We planted them in a 4 ft bu 4 ft area and they seem to have germinated well.

These are our Bloomsdale Spinach seelings.  Spinach is one of my favorite greens.  Fresh spinach had the best flavor.  Can't wait until we can pick this stuff!!

Hoping we will have some stuff for our first farmers market, April 30th.  Will keep you posted on our plants! 

Finally some nice weather!

This has been the longest winter ever!  This last couple of weeks have been really rough on all of us here.  It has been especially hard on my little boy who loves to be outside.  My husband took Friday off of work so we could get some planting done and it was great to be outside!  We have all felt so much better.  Even my little girl who is only 18 months has been so much happier this weekend.  We went up to the farm Friday to get some stuff done.

The day was so nice!  Blue skies and 65.  A perfect day to do some planting.

My little boy had so much fun helping out.  He planted all of the fingeling poatoes.

We really expanded our garlic patch this year.  We only had 2 rows last year and we have 6 this year.  I also planted a half row of spring garlic. 

Last year we planted arugula for the first time and it is like a weed in the garden now! 

We also had quite a few turnips in the ground still.  Some were baseball sized.

I also found an arrowhead in the garden.  This is the third one I have found in the garden.  This one looks to be in good shape, just missing the tip. 
Today we had some stuff to do around the house.  We are expanding our side garden and I cleaned out the back garden.  We also bought a pound of snap peas that we are planting along all of our fences (aka chicken wire to keep the dog out) to maximize space.

This is actually a lot bigger than it looks.  We planted snap peas all along the fence here.

I found what I suspect (note the word suspect.  As in I don't know for sure so don't take my word for it!) is bittercress.  I can't find a good source for identifying it online, so I am going to pick up Peterson's Field Guide to wild edibles.

We also have a lot of things coming back on their own.  Here is some spinach...

and mustard greens...

And Starbor Kale that we overwintered.  We should get seeds this year from the kale and the mustard greens as it is their second year.  We really enjoy this type of kale.  It has a mild flavor and is great in smoothies.  It is really nice to have all this stuff coming back that we don't have to do anything to!  We also have rhubarb, lavender, ground cherries, cress, horehound, strawberries and other stuff I am forgetting, that will come back on their own.  We still have a lot of planting to do so hopefully the weather will continue to stay nice!  

New recipe and a new page on growing plants from seed...

I have been working on some new stuff for the website.  I recently added my recipe for chicken enchiladas.  It uses dry beans which really help make this a frugal recipe.  Dry beans are a great way to stretch meat dishes.  You can find the recipe here.

We have also started most of our seeds for this year.  Growing plants from seed saves us a ton of money every year and is not as hard as it sounds.  There is not much of an investment and you can be sure the quality of the plants will be great!  We have had bad experiences with plants purchased from large home improvement stores.  We have a couple of nice greenhouses in town but would go broke pretty quick if we bought all of our plants from them!  I have written a page on how we start our plants from seed.  If you are interested in trying it you should check it out :)

Kitchen herb garden...

I planted some basil at the beginning of January.  I was desperate to plant something.  I took this a couple of weeks ago.  It is doing really well now.  I actually picked a couple of leaves to use in my spaghetti sauce last night.  We have also started most of our plants.  It is a little early, but we always seem to have small plants so we decided to go a bit earlier this year.  Of course the plants are huge this year, so no idea where the heck we are going to keep them all!  We had to go out and buy another light yesterday.

This really doesn't do justice to the sheer amount of seeds we have.  We probably have 100 different kinds!  We are going to try some really fun things this year and we are really excited.  Hopefully we will have some dry days here so we can get out there and plant some stuff.  I want to direct seed some spinach, corn salad, radishes, and shallots now.  What are you planting this year?

Fall Pics

I think I am cursed.  Everytime I think..."Oh I think I have enough money to buy a Kitchen Aid stand mixer", I break something.  I am going to try and not think that anymore.  I went out and bought a new camera finally.  This is why I don't buy an expensive one.  Anyways I wanted to share some fall pics with you...

Some pumpkins..not ours.  We did ok with the mini pumpkins this year but we didn't get any winter squash and the stink bugs has destroyed the summer squash by the middle of July.  We got our truck now so we are going to get some fertilizer up at the farm.  I think the plants need some good soil.

More squash and such...same person.

Here is our table...greens, greens, and more greens!  I am really excited with how well our fall stuff did.  We tried Mustard Greens for the first time and they have grown wonderfully.  Our Basil is actually still producing with only a couple plants that were harmed by the cold nights.  We also have arugula which did well and radishes.  The radishes have been more knobby then the spring ones and a bit hotter.  The French Breakfast, as always, did the best.  I would be satisfied with just growing these but J wants to grow Cherry Bells which is probably a good idea.  This is what most people are looking for.  I also grew a fall planting of Cilantro which is doing much better then our spring crop and I think I will do this every year.  The lavender is still kicking, and so is the Chard.  Overall this year has been 10 times better then last year, even with the dry weather we have had.  I can't believe it is almost over!!!  We are, of course, already planning for next year and hope to do 2 markets.  I have some other stuff I have wanting to be posting so hopefully I will get to that in the next couple of days :)