Finally a saturday with nothing to do but garden. It has been a long time. I’ve been traveling and visiting family. While I wasn’t looking the vegie garden was planning to take over the world. The beans are up to the top of the poles and heading back down. I picked a big basket of Italian beans (romano). The pole french fillets are not quite ready and the bush french fillets are finished. I had about 15 carrots that came up. (I used the old seeds from 2011)
They were really beautiful. I tried a new recipe for firecracker carrots. They are pickled spicy carrots that sit in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks. Here is the how to:
Firecracker carrots.
1/2 lb of baby carrots or cleaned, peeled and cut carrots.
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp onion powder
2 whole dried red peppers
1 tsp dried chili flakes
Place small bite sized carrots in spring lid jar
Put all the other ingredients into a non reactive pan, bring to a boil and boil for 4 minutes.
pour boiling liquid over carrots and seal. Store in refrigerator for at least a week. The longer it sits the hotter they get!.
I planted new rows of lettuce, spinach, and arugula today. I have some arugula up and ready from the 2nd planting. Now on to the third round. We have had a great year with lots of great sun, warm days and nights, and very little rain.
I also planted walla walla sweet onion. They were fantastic this year… Now what to do with 50 walla walla sweets. I will probably make onion marmalade or onion jam. This is a wonderful condiment that is great with bread, cream cheese, other cheeses, and grilled burgers.
These onions are so sweet some people eat them like an apple. They need to be dried for a couple of days in the sun so the dirt falls off and roots dry up. (called curing). These onions bruise easily so they must be handled carefully. The best way to keep them is to use panty hose and add onions separated by knots. Cutting out the onions as you need them. They only last about 6 weeks so enjoy them while you can. Last year I left my onions in the ground but they became hotter and hotter as they sat there. Not edible by the time I got ready to eat them. They were not walla wallas but I don’t want to take a chance.
Of course I’m a landscape designer so there are some design elements in the vegetable garden also. These are the steps up a steep bank to where the vegetable garden is.
The border to the raspberries is made out of recycled metal. It was put in with long rebar stakes so I could add a lot of soil and create the bed. I use metal wire for supports in the raspberries, and in the beds after planting to keep animals from digging in the new plants
Replanted lettuce, spinach, and arugula.
