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

Sums it up...

This quote from a Mother Earth News interview with Joel Salatin called "Everything He Wants to Do is Illegal", sums up my feelings today. He says it better than I could anyways.

"The industrial food system views plants and animals as inanimate protoplasmic structure to be manipulated, however cleverly the human mind can conceive to manipulate it.
I would suggest that a society that views its life from that egocentric, disrespectful, manipulative standpoint will view its citizenry the same way . . . and other cultures." -Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms

Read the article here: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/Joel-Salatin-Interview.aspx?page=4#ixzz1ljB1KgQA

We still have produce for sale!

Although our regular market season is over, we still have some produce for sale!  If you are in the Lancaster area we can arrange a pick up time so please contact us at glennfamilygardens@gmail.com or on facebook under Glenn Family Gardens!

We have:

Turnips- 3/$1

Kale- $2.50 for a gallon bag

Mixed radishes- $1 a bunch

Decorative Broom corn- $1 each

Rainbow swiss chard- $1 a bunch

Thanks again for a great Market season. 

Summer update...

Alrighty, I updated to the new Blogger so things seems to be back in order :)  Here are those pics I wanted to post from this summer.

Starting in no real order, here is our Amaranth that we grew this year.  That is a 6 foot fence, and the catalog said they would only grow to 6 ft. so that was a fun surprise!  We had a lot of strong winds this summer and the only reason these suckers didn't blow over was because of that fence.  We harvested quite a bit from about 5 of them.  We has good intentions of harvesting from the rest but we got lazy and they went bad :(  Next year we are going to do a better job!  They were so easy to harvest from.  They don't have a hull so they are a great beginner grain.  You just rub them off the seed head and winnow them with a fan on low.  The winnowing was a lot easier then I though it would be.

Here are some of our asparagus beans.  These are fun to grown and get a lot of people to stop and look.  They have an interesting mushroom flavor to me.  They are best stir fried.

Here is a basket of our cherry tomatoes that we grow.  Green, purple, yellow, red, and orange.  These make awesome brushetta :)

Here are our favorite hot peppers, fish peppers.  They have the best flavor and make great hot pepper jelly as well as dried pepper flakes.  We entered some of these in the county fair and we are hoping to get a ribbon!

Some freshly dug Jerusalem artichokes (dirt included!).  Jerusalem artichokes are an interesting plant.  They are a member of the sunflower family and the edible tubers have a water chestnut texture.  I think the flavor is smokey, almost like they have been hickory smoked.

We tried growing Mexican sour gherkins this year which were really fun and productive but a pain in the behind to pick.

And finally a picture of our market table a couple of weeks ago.  Hope you all had a good summer!



So Long Summer :(

I was planning on posting lots of pictures and catching up but Blogger has made some changes that I do not like at all so I will be checking out Wordpress in the next couple of days. I am hoping there format is more user friendly. I will keep you posted!

Weekely Produce Updates Now On Facebook!

As you can see we haven't been putting much on the blog. With John working, farmer's market, and me selling at craft shows, it has been pretty busy around here. For those of you looking for weekly updates on the produce we will have at market please check out our Facebook page by clicking on the first widget on the right side of our page. Even if you don't have a Facebook account you can still see the page.

Christmas time will probably busy for us as well but I am hoping to start posting more stuff. Hang in there with us :)

What we will have this week 8/20...

We will have...

Tomatoes

Okra

Kale

Chard

Green beans

Asparagus beans

Basil

Mini pumpkins

Purple beans

Mexican sour gherkins

And I am pretty sure that is it!

What we will have 8/13...

We will have...

Peppers (jalapenos, fish, pepperoncini, corno di toro, and bell peppers)

Squash (cocozella di napoli, patisson strie melange, yellow crookneck and mini pumpkins)

Genovese basil

Chard

Kale

Flowers

Cucumbers

Okra

Heirloom tomatoes (assorted cherries, and traveler's)

See you there!

What we will have 8/6/2011...

Heirloom cherry tomatoes (red, yellow, orange, and green)

Corno di toro, spanish heirloom sweet pepper

Fish peppers, an African American hot pepper

Pepperoncinis, italian hot peppers

Jalapenos

Heirloom summer squash and zucchini

Sumter and Poona Keera cucumbers

Genovese Basil

Rainbow swiss chard

Blue curled scotch kale

Mexican sour gherkins

Asparagus beans (Asian long beans)

Recipe of the week...

The recipe for this week was the cheesy jalapeno cornbread from "The Yummy Life". Yummo!

Blogger was being a stinker last week so here is the recipe from last week. Easy refrigerator pickles from Pick Your Own.

Little eco owls...

I made these little owls from re-purposed wool sweaters.  So far they have been a good seller at market which has been really exciting!  Here is a pic of them...

I am hoping to do some crafty type shows in the fall so I wanted to get a feel for how they sold.  Looks like they are a keeper!

What we will have 7/23...

Rainbow Chard


Kale

Collard Greens

Hot Peppers (jalapeno, and pepperoncini)

Dragon Tongue Beans

Pickling Cucs

Poona Keera Cucs

Heirloom Summer Squash

Dog Treats

Garlic

Genovese Basil

Garden before and after...

We generally don't post too many pictures of the garden after June because by then the weeds are usually out of control.  This year is a little better then most since we have been spending so much time at the farm.  We still could do a lot more, and hopefully will be able to someday!

These are our squash we planted a month ago...

Here they are now.  Yikes!  You can't tell but we have squash and melons planted all down the length of the garden.  They are all heirloom of course and are showing really good disease resistance.

Tomatoes a month ago...

Tomatoes now.  We are really bad at staking our tomatoes so they are just laying everywhere.  This is a bummer because the tomatoes will rot if they are on the ground.  We will still get lots but next year we are really going to focus on staking!  Do you see the random sunflowers that came up from last year?

Here is our table from market this week :)

Recipe of the Week 7/16

We are now going to feature a recipe of the week at market, and share it here.

Zucchini Cakes:

2 cup grated zucchini
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 cup diced onion
1 clove diced garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients in large bowl.

Coat pan with oil.

Cook like pancakes.

Top with sour cream, or salsa.

What we will have 7-16-11...

Sorry this is late but we have a ton of stuff and we just got done getting it all ready :)  We will have...

Rainbow Chard

Kale

Collard Greens

Hot Peppers (jalapeno, and pepperoncini)

Beet Greens

Dragon Tongue Beans

Pickling Cucs

Poona Keera Cucs

Heirloom Summer Squash

Dog Treats

Garlic

Genovese Basil

Uh I think that is it! Hope to see you there :)

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!)

Garlic Scape Jelly

Soo I wanted to post about this earlier...you know like when garlic scapes were still in season ;)  But you can easily make this with regular garlic which is now coming into season.  I just used the recipe in the Ball canning book but did not roast the scapes and added a tbsp. of fresh chopped rosemary.  It is really yummy and the rosemary really adds that extra special yum quality!  Pour the jelly over some cream cheese and serve with crackers.  Delish!!  This makes a great last minute gift or hostess gift as well :)

What we will have this Saturday...

Produce we will have Saturday the 9th:

Summer squashes including Cocozella Di Napoli (Italian heirloom with a great flavor and stays tasty even at a large size, Patisson Strie Melange (French heirloom patty pan), early yellow crook neck.

Rainbow Chard

Blue Curled Scotch Kale

Garlic

Genovese Basil

Oregano

Why we do what we do



Checking on the wild berries!

 Now that we are in our third season of marketing our produce at the local farmers market I thought it best to give some history of our farm, and why we do what we do.   About four years ago my wife and I decided to be more conscious of the food we eat and where it comes from.  We began with a small garden and shopped at the farmers market in the summer.  We also tried to supplement with grocery store organic products but this was beginning to be a bit expensive for our budget, and did not fit well into our desire to eat more locally produced foods.  As a natural progression we wanted to grow as much of our own food as possible in a chemical free, earth friendly manner.  Then it hit us!  "There have to be more people in our situation",  those who desire a healthy locally produced product but feel it is to expensive for them.  This lead to our decision to start a farm.    We strive to raise our products free from pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers utilizing bio-diverse farming methods, crop rotation, animal manure, and compost.  We also raise as many heirloom fruits and veggies as possible, excluding all GMO crop varieties.  We feel holding ourselves to these standards is important to our family, community, and the the well being of the planet as a whole.

As our farm grows we hope that you will grow with us.  This blog will not only chronicle our growth, but serve as a tool for our customers to have access to us, and as an information database for "how to" gardening, cooking, and all around simple and frugal living.