Tag Archives: Vegetables

Jul 7 2011

Lettuce and Spinach

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Lettuce and Spinach earliest planting in back to new planting in front

I love love love having lettuce and Spinach in the garden.  I’m a big salad person and it is great to be able make one anytime you want.  My husband and I have found that when planting lettuce and spinach it’s better to stagger the planting rather than plant a whole row.  We never eat a whole row of lettuce and spinach before it starts to flower.  Once they flower the leaves start to turn bitter.  By staggering the planting I can continually have lettuce and spinach throughout the season.

Spring mix variety

 

Lettuce is a pretty easy plant to grow.  It is tolerant to cold weather, which is great around here.  I usually get two different varieties.  One is a spring mix and the other a buttercrisp. The spring mix is a mix of different lettuce varieties put together.  I like those because you get a colorful and different tasting variety.  Some leaves are purple others have a different leave shape.  Some taste a little bitter or more salty, and some are sweeter.  I also plant a buttercrisp variety which is your usual green leaf lettuce.  I happen to like the taste of this variety so if I were you just pick a variety that is your favorite.  I don’t usually have any problems with the lettuce I guess the only issue I have is sometimes when I pick them there are earwigs on them.  I absolutely can’t stand earwigs.  So before bringing the heads in the house to wash I just give them a good shake.  The lettuce when I pick it sometimes feels a little wilted but that isn’t a problem.  All you need to do is bring it in and wash it really good and put it in a container and then put it in the fridge.  It crisps right up after it chills for a while.

Spinach

Spinach is nice to have but takes a little more work to grow.  I haven’t been very successful with growing spinach.  This year has been better than most.  Spinach loves sandy soil and we just don’t have that.  Our soil has a lot of clay and makes it really tough for spinach to thrive.  The best solution would be for us to amend our soil with some sand but we just have not done that yet.  Another problem I have discovered is that something is eating my spinach.  The leaves were turning a weird almost opaque color.  At first glance I thought it might have some kind of fungus.  Then I picked a leave and noticed some kind of grub eating between the outer layers of the leaf.  Yuck! I don’t want that in my salad.  I don’t usually like to use pesticides or harsh fertilizers on my garden.  This time I decided if I wanted spinach I had to do something.  So I removed all the infected leaves and spayed on Fungicide 3.  It’s a product from garden safe.  It is supposed to be a fungicide, insecticide, and miticide all in one.  I’m not sure what I’m trying to kill so I’m not sure if this will work.  You’re supposed to spray it on every 7 to 10 days until all leaves are uninfected.  I sprayed it on last week and again today.  Each time I remove the infected leaves.  Hopefully the spinach starts to look better soon.  Do you have any ideas?

Infected Spinach Leaf

Jul 3 2011

Garlic

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Garlic

I find garlic to be one of the easiest things to grow.  My husband and I started growing garlic a few years ago and we have kept doing it since.  We use garlic for so many things and it’s nice to always have fresh garlic around.

Growing garlic started with a trip to the grocery store.  While buying some garlic at the store we were curious about growing it in our own garden.  So we bought a couple of heads of garlic and separated the cloves and planted them in the garden just to see what would happen.  You plant garlic in the fall just like you would any type of bulb (ie tulips).  In the spring we were surprised to see garlic sprouting up.  It was great.  The garlic we bought from the store worked but the bulbs when harvested were smaller than what you bought at the store.  The next year we kept some of our bulbs that we had harvested and planted them again.  We also went to our local food co-op and bought some garlic that someone had grown on their farm locally.  It was amazing the difference in size each variety had.  The locally grown garlic was much larger than the grocery store.  This year we just planted some of our bulbs from last and it’s doing great.  I suggest buying the garlic from your local farmers market or co-op if you want to plant.  I tried buying from the local garden store and it was expensive ($4 dollars a bulb)  The co-op was only selling it for $1.00 a bulb.  Now we have an unlimited supply of garlic.  I planted about 6 bulbs of garlic which for us yields about 24 bulbs in the spring.  So that leaves us with 18 bulbs to use during the year.  The garlic when stored correctly last until your next harvest or until you consume it all.

Garlic is known to have many medicinal properties.  Garlic is great for your heart and helps regulate blood sugar levels.  There are a lot of reasons you should grow garlic.  Not only is it good for your health but it taste good too.  We use it in sauces, salsas, Asian foods, mix it with olive oil and use as a dip.  The possibilities are unlimited.  One down fall of garlic is that it can cause some really bad halitosis.  Also if you eat a lot of garlic your sweat could have a garlic odor.  I happen to like the smell of garlic but most people don’t.  Garlic is hard to smell on other people when you yourself have been eating garlic so if you’re worried about the smell just make sure everyone else is eating it too.

Garlic growing in our garden

Jul 1 2011

Gardening

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my garden

I love gardens.  I don’t claim to be an expert on gardening although I would like to be one someday.  I think gardening is a life long project.  You are always learning more.  Everyone has their own opinion on how gardening should be done.  I think it doesn’t matter if you are a patio gardener, square foot gardener, or a row gardener as long as you love what you’re doing and are somewhat successful at it than you’re on the right path to becoming an expert. Every year we try something different in our garden.  Some things work and somethings don’t it is always a learning experience. I love the feeling you get when you walk out into your garden and can see the results of your hard work.  I’m hoping to share with you information about my garden and what I’ve planted this year.  Not only what I’ve planted but how these things can be used when harvested.  Of course I expect you to do the same.  Tell me what works for you and what doesn’t.  Tell me what you’ve done with the produce you get. I think this will be a fun learning experience.  Here are the things we have planted in the garden  so far this year.  I’ll hopefully blog about each one.

 

Vegetables: garlic, peas, lettuce, spinach, radishes, green peppers, hot peppers, green beans, carrots, corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, onions

Fruits: tomatoes, watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, grapes, apples

Herbs: chives, Italian parsley

 

Apr 1 2011

Pan fried chicken salad

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Sometimes for dinner all I crave is a nice big salad.  I used the spinach, Romain lettuce,carrots, celery, tomatoes, and asparagus in this salad.  I pan fried a chicken breast with a little butter and olive oil.  I hard boiled some eggs and sliced them.  Put it all together and we had one yummy salad.  I would’ve liked to grill the chicken but it was just way to windy. This experiment is coming to an end.  I did enjoy sharing some of my experiences with you.  I’ll probably do something like this in the future with things we get out of our garden.  I think if you can participate in bountiful baskets it is worth it.  It does have it’s good points but just like everything else there are bad points too.  For example, this past Monday I went to order my basket for this week.  I got online at noon and had trouble making my order for an hour.  It was really inconvenient and frustrating.  I don’t usually have problems with ordering but I think with the increasing popularity of the baskets comes overwhelming of the servers.  I love always having fresh fruits and veggies on hand and it has really helped me be more creative with my meals.  Saving money isn’t bad either.  Over all I think that the good out weighs the bad and I’ll probably continue ordering baskets until the harvest season starts.  I’ll take a break until winter starts up again. I’ll still blog from time to time about yummy meals that turned out well for my family.  I really love hearing and getting ideas from each of you.  Thanks for all the feedback.

Mar 30 2011

Hawaiian Haystack

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Hawaiian Haystack

Hawaiian haystacks were another staple growing up.  Traditionally we ate it with chicken and a chicken gravy but I had some left over gingered pork that I needed to use up.  I cut the pork up into small pieces and then added some water and terriaki sauce.  I brought it to a boil and then thickened it with cornstarch.  Never done this before but it turned out alright.  A haystack begins with a layer of chow mien noodles.  Then you add a layer of rice.  Lastly you top it with what ever toppings you like.  Today we had, from the basket, fresh pineapple, celery, and tomatoes.  I also added cheese and onions.  Then you top it off with some gravy.  This was pretty good although I think I still prefer the chicken and gravy.  Pineapple is high in vitamin C.  Celery is a good source of Vitamin C & A.  Tomatoes are high in Vitamin A & C and a good source of potassium.

Mar 29 2011

Baked potatoes

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Baked potatoes

Growing up my family would always have a baked potato bar for dinner.  My mom would bake some potatoes and than give us what ever toppings we desired on them.  So every so often I do the same for my family.  I love putting broccoli on my baked potatoes.  I used to make a cheese sauce and also pour it over the top.  This is a healthier version of that.  The broccoli is from last weeks basket.  It’s too late now but I wish I had baked up some of my sweet potatoes and used them instead of your normal potato.  That is also a great way to mix things up a little.  Guess I can to that for lunch sometime.  Even though the potato didn’t come from the basket I’ll tell you that potatoes are high in vitamin C and a good source of potassium.  The broccoli is high in vitamin C and folate.  It is also a good source of dietary fiber and potassium.

Mar 27 2011

The experiement week 5: final week

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I’m on the last week of this experiment.  So I decided, since the bountiful baskets are possible primarily because of volunteers, that I would volunteer this week.  The pick up time was 9:45am the volunteers have to show up an hour earlier at 8:45am.  When I got there there were already 5 others there to volunteer.  We unloaded the produce from the truck and then started putting them in baskets, 60 baskets to be exact.  There were other volunteers who showed up after me and we ended up with about 10 people there.  Everything went very smoothly.  We were done putting all the produce in the baskets ready for pick up by 9:30 fifteen minutes before pick up time.  Once everyone started showing up it went very quickly and I was home by 10:00am.  However, this isn’t how it always goes.  It is all dependent on how many people volunteer.  Last week there were only a few volunteers and they didn’t finish until about 10:30.  They had a line of people waiting for their baskets. When you volunteer you get an extra big item or 2 extra small items.  I choose for my extra a bundle of spinach.

This week I feel is better than last because I feel we got a lot of produce.  When I tallied everything and priced it out it ended up totaling $23.57.  Really not what I expected.  I expected that I would save a lot more this week but really this and last week savings are around the same. This weeks basket contained:

1 pineapple           6 bananas         2 bundles of asparagus

2 zucchini              3 mangoes         3 tomatoes

2 grapefruit            6 apples             6 sweet potatoes

2 bundles of spinach             1lb carrots              1 head of green leaf lettuce

Just because I say this is the final week of the experiment doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll stop getting the baskets just that I’ll hopefully form a conclusion and then stop blogging about it.  This week is spring break and, in theory,  I should be able to find a little more time to blog about what I have done with my items.  I hope I can end this experiment with a bang.

Mar 21 2011

Bountiful Basket Week 4

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There were a few things that went wrong for this week.  First off I got a little busy last Monday and totally forgot to put my order in until 4:30 pm.  When I did put my order in all the spots were taken for the site I usually pick up at.  So I had to pick up at a site that was across town.  It’s only about a 15 minute drive but when you’re used to going just a few blocks from your house it’s disappointing.  The other down side was the pick up time was 2 hours earlier.  It was at 7:45 am.  The one I normally go it is at 9:45 am.  On Thursday I started to come down with some kind of cold.  By Saturday I was in no mood to do anything.  Luckily I have a wonderful husband who volunteered to pick up the basket for me (no really he did).  He even took Levi with him and they made a daddy son time out of it.  I was a little disappointed with the basket turn out.  Here is what we got this week.

3 Mangos                          4 Tomatoes                   12 Tangerines

5 Apples                            1 Carton Blueberries       8 Bananas

1 Cantaloupe                    1lb Asparagus

1 Head of Cauliflower       1 Stalk of Celery                3 crowns of Broccoli

The reason for my disappointment is I felt there wasn’t very much this week.  Usually we end up with something exotic and new.  All of these fruits and veggies are things I’m familiar with.  Don’t get me wrong I still love what I got just not sure I got a great deal this week.  I took my list to the grocery store and priced everything out.  If I had bought all this at the store it would have cost me  $22.03 plus tax.  This is only about $5.50 savings.  Since we had to drive further to get all this I’m not sure it’s worth the money.  If I was consistently getting the same results I might not even bother with the basket, but in the previous weeks I have saved a considerable amount so I don’t think I’ll let one week sway me.  I did end up with some blueberries and more cantaloupe. I’m very excited about that.

Mar 17 2011

Turnips

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Potato turnip mash

Unfortunately sometimes experimenting with food doesn’t turn out so good.  I had read that cooking a turnip is a lot like a potato.  I also read a recipe for scalloped turnips.  So I thought I would make my scalloped potato and ham recipe but instead of using potatoes I would use turnips.  Never having cooked turnips I was surprised with the results.  Turnips cook quicker than potatoes.  They also absorb more water.  The end result was a little mushy and watery.  My family still ate it but we won’t be doing that again.  Something I did discover was that cooked turnips have a cauliflowery, cabbagey taste.  I had one more turnip that I needed to do something with.  A friend of mine gave me a recipe for a potato turnip mash.  It wasn’t bad it actually had a lot of flavor.  My mistake was serving it with some fried chicken.  The chicken over powered everything that was on the plate.  It had so much flavor that when you went to take a bite out of anything else they seemed to have no flavor.  My first bite was great but after eating the chicken the potato turnip mash just seemed like a watery mashed potato.  The good thing about experimenting is now I know a lot more about turnips than I did and maybe next time I’ll get it right.  I think the next time I end up with a turnip I will try it in a stew or soup like Aubrey suggested.  Turnips are  an excellent source of vitamin C.

 

Mar 15 2011

Spinach Manicotti

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I used up the rest of my spinach by putting it in manicotti.  I like to put spinach in manicotti.  Usually we use frozen spinach.  Since I had the fresh spinach from the basket I just chopped the rest up (about 2 cups chopped) and put it in the stuffing mixture.  I wish I had taken a picture of the stuffing before I cooked the manicotti because these pictures don’t do it justice.  Everyone loved it.  This is a good way to disguise spinach if you don’t particularly care for it.  I’m a little sad because now all my spinach is all gone.  Spinach is one of those super veggies that is packed with all sorts of nutrients.  I can’t help but think that Popeye had it right.

Levi taking a big bite


The kids really did enjoy the Manicotti