Radish sandwich

My radish sandwich this weekend was totally delicious - two open-faced halves.  And easy breezy.  One baby bagel.  Cream cheese with fresh chopped chives and dried lemon thyme mixed in.  Sliced radishes thick on top.  Black Hiwa Kai lava sea salt sprinkled lightly on top.  A fantastically refreshing light meal!

Radish types and tastes

Radishes are the first crop of spring, and while I've harvested 6-7 of them already (and put them on salads), this evening I thought I had enough for picking and pickling.  I've been itching to pickle radishes - I feel kind of like Bryce and Lisa on Portlandia (watch here): I'm always looking for things to pickle (OK, not bandages etc.) :-).  But I do love veggie pickles like pickled green beans and pickled carrots and even pickled green tomatoes, which I remember my grandmother making.  So I was excited that I saw so many radish tops above the ground, seemingly ready to harvest and pickle.

Well, I was wrong about how many were ready.  I was fooled.  Most were very small and not quite ready.  I ended up with 1/2 pound (weighed with tops), and even some that I harvested were smaller than was appropriate.  But I had them so I needed to decide what to do with them.  The first thing was a taste test.  I harvested early scarlet globe, pink beauty, plum purple, and french breakfast (in order in the photo):

It's the first time I've taste-tested radishes.  I think the French breakfast has the most typical radish taste - a bit of a bite.  Both pink beauty and scarlet globe are mild, with the scarlet globe a little more "radish-like" than the pink beauty.  The plum purple actually seems to have a bit of a nutty flavor!  It was so fun to taste the difference between them!

So now I have enough radishes for a radish salad, or a radish sandwich (see Deborah Madison's cookbook - Local Flavors), but what to do with the tops?  Well, they are edible so I decided to make radish pesto.  I am using the leaves and roots, with olive oil and garlic.  Put them in your food processor with as little oil as possible, just enough to make a paste.  Then pack this into ice cube trays and freeze.  I don't put in the cheese because it doesn't freeze well (you can add it later if desired) and I don't put in nuts because the pesto is more versatile without them.  I will try using this pesto for sandwich spread in the summer when I make grilled veggie and cheese sandwiches.

Using green tomato salsa

We are almost out of green tomato salsa!  We only have 3 jars left - and one of those is open already.  We definitely need to make more next year.  Last winter we didn't use nearly as much of the salsa, but I think it's because we weren't being creative with how we used it.  This year, we used it for nachos, quesadillas, vegetable medleys, with eggs, etc.  It's not just for dip with chips.

Squash plants going crazy

These guys are big and beautiful, they are spaghetti squash.

The other types are smaller, but still doing great.  Everything from white, yellow and green patty pans to zucchini to summer ball pumpkins:

Bushy basil lessons

I know that you have to snip off the tops of basil in order to make it bush out.  But I only learned last year how early you have to snip off those tops!  Apparently if you snip off the second set of true leaves the plant really starts bushing out.  These are Thai Basil plants - and they are sprouting lots more leaves.  Now I'll have to figure out when to snip off these sprouts to promote more growth and bushiness.

I've done the same snipping on my lettuce leaf basil, emily basil, and genovese basil.  They're a little slower, but they look like they're reacting the same way.

Starting the spring harvest

Well, it's been a long long time since I've blogged.  Between work, family, and getting ready for the spring planting I just haven't found the time.  I must put up pictures of the squash plants, which are going crazy, and the basil and everything else I've had to replant into larger pots while they wait to go into the garden.  Not to mention the 52 lettuce plants I planted outside already.  But today I will post a picture of the first spring vegetable harvest.  While we have been harvesting herbs for a while now, radishes are the first spring veggies to be ready.  These were put on salad:

I never thought I liked radishes until last year when I planted some seeds given to me by my daughter.  I enjoyed them so much that I bought 9 different types of heirloom radishes.  The fall harvest didn't go well at all - a single daikon was all I got.  But so far this spring it's looking pretty good.  I mix the seeds and just sprinkle on top of the ground, so I don't know what these guys are for sure, but they look like french breakfast.  And they were very tasty!

Petting the tomatoes

Today I transplanted the tomatoes into larger pots.  They are doing so good this year!  And the best part is petting them...really.  According to the books I've read, this increases a hormone in the plant that produces stockier stems (according to the internet it's the Thigmo response).  So every day I pet them twice - when I turn on the lights in the morning and when I turn off the lights at night.  I stand there and talk to them and pet them and I imagine that they're smiling and happy.  Yes, I'm a hippie.

It's our energy - we are connected.  Not just in Connected Roots Garden - we are all connected.

Mother Earth expels our trash

One thing that I've noticed since creating vegetable garden spaces is that the ground is constantly serving up some new piece of trash, deposited years ago, but only now coming to the surface.  I see it as Mother Earth gradually getting rid of all the yucky non-organic things that we humans have tried to bury within her.  When I get my stitches during skin cancer surgeries this sometimes happens - an internal stitch will be pushed up and exposed, as if my body is saying - "no, I don't like this in me."  Mother earth is doing the same with our trash.  Good for her.  Here's my evidence:

Now, I walk my garden every day - literally every day (unless it's raining hard), so I can pull weeds before they take over, replant any plants that the squirrels dig up, etc.  And I have loosened the soil many times using the broadfork, smoothing the soil with a rake, and my hands.  I've planted for multiple seasons (always by hand).  Still, every other day or so I look down and there's some piece of glass, or an unidentifiable object of some sort, laying on the top of the ground.  It wasn't there yesterday or the day before, but today it's sitting right on top of the ground.  It is clearly mother earth expelling trash she doesn't want buried inside of her.  Working it up to the surface so I can find it and take it away.  Truly amazing.  But I throw it in the trash - which goes into a landfill.  It's just being buried back into mother earth somewhere else.  Disturbing.

Nasturtiums

Last year my nasturtiums had a hard time coming up.  It was too cold in the basement, it was such a long and cold winter.  This year is completely different - the nasturtiums are growing great!

I love the spicy leaves and the touch of sweet in the spicy flowers.  And the flowers are so beautiful on top of every kind of dish - they make it.  I even freeze the leaves in the fall, and use them all winter long (no blanching necessary).  In fact, dinner tonight is quesadillas with home-made green tomato salsa and nasturtium leaves.  Nice.

Thinning seedlings

If you are not ready to thin your plants, you are not ready to be self-sufficient in vegetables.  Once you start your seeds you will have more plants sprout than should grow in a cell.  One plant per cell is the rule.  If you try to grow more, they will strangle each other - giving you weak plants instead of strong ones.  With lettuce, it's not so bad because you can eat the thinnings.

With tomatoes and other plants it's harder - you cut down the little plants and throw them into the compost.  But you have to do it.  It's hard to reconcile taking the time to plant from seeds and then cutting down a lot of those plants, but they grow stronger and better when you thin them.  Don't let your sentimental side keep you from thinning your seedlings - they need it.

Benefits of sustainable living

This weekend I went to a work party - hosted by one of the guys on my team.  I wanted to take a hostess gift and started thinking about what I could bring.  One of the best parts of growing and preserving your own food is that you can give gifts that come from your heart.  I put a mint jelly (for pork and lamb), raspberry wine jelly (for appetizers on crackers with cheddar cheese), 2 heads of garlic and seed packets I made up myself into a basket. 

For the rest of my team I brought seed packets (envelopes), plants, and spices - depending on who plants, who lives in apartments, and who cooks.  It made me so happy to give these.  It's a little part of me that I can give to them.