Rappahannock Cook & Kitchen Gardener

I am told that open-face radish sandwiches are an acquired taste.
I am told - very firmly - that cream of radish-leaf soup is undoubtedly an acquired taste.
Nobody’s perfect!
I still plant radishes. Those ‘Radis de 18 Jours’ are young, crisp, mildly spicy and pleasantly rosy. Still… not quite “18 day” radishes as the French name would [...]

Posted in Kitchen Garden, locavore log, vegetable Comments(8)

Before the rain is a good time to:
1. transplant Swiss chard

2. transplant lettuce

3. check on tomato seedlings in greenhouse. Sigh. Too early to transplant outside. BUT

Posted in Garden Technique, Kitchen Garden, vegetable Comments(2)

This is the 2nd article of a 2 part-series geared at first-time would-be food gardeners (Read Part I here)

What should I plant?
Not so fast! (aren’t you getting tired with me saying this so often?)
Before you plant, you need a place to plant. We already discussed where. Now let’s discuss how.
Mid-April is late by all counts [...]

Posted in Kitchen Garden, vegetable Comments(6)

Bow to the mighty asparagus!
The first ones are now tentatively pushing their rosy tip up - just checking on the above ground weather. Is last year holds true (and so far, it does, as after a few days of warm weather, we are back to cool - including below 32F (0C) at night), then the [...]

Posted in Kitchen Garden, vegetable Comments(4)

It’s time to start hardening off the babies. At least, for those of us in the Northern Piedmont (and in the mid-Atlantic area). Yep, time to start hardening off the hardy annual vegetables that were lovingly started indoors. That include you people who took one of my “Starting The Veggy Garden from Seeds” workshops [...]

Posted in Fruit recipe, Garden, Garden Technique, Kitchen Garden, Recipe, Seed Starting, locavore log, vegetable Comments(2)

Transplants: 350! (more or less); about 200 planted on Monday and 150 planted ten days ago. I have never been successful with the sets (mini-bulbs) planted in the spring: they hardly grew bigger than they start at! So, this year, I bought (more expensive) transplants: 2 bunches from our local farm store (1 red, 1 [...]

Posted in Kitchen Garden, vegetable Comments(1)

Do you do pot?
Not that kind of pot, silly! But “pot” as in food grown in a container…
Virginia Rockwell asked me in a comment on the post labeled “Eating Local in the Northern Piedmont in Winter” if I have “any tips for newbies [about] growing your own in central VA? […] focusing on growing edibles [...]

Posted in Garden, Kitchen Garden, Recipe, herb, locavore log, vegetable Comments(9)

There are indubitable signs of springs out there (besides the 2 minutes of additional daily daytime we are getting now).
For once, the snowdrops are nodding their tiny white bells in the still blustery gusts of wind and then, then!, yellow IS swelling the buds of the early daffodils. But for the ever hopeful kitchen gardener, [...]

Posted in Appetizer, Cookery, Garden, Kitchen Garden, Side Dish, Soups, Vegetable recipe, herb, herb recipe, locavore log, vegetable Comments(22)

Can you guess what this is (without hovering over it with your mouse)?

Hint: it’s not ginger.
Answer - and recipe - in the next episode.
Oh, and if you are the first person to guess right, I am happy to send you some (US only, please… but not to AK; AZ; CA nor HI ). Then [...]

Posted in Harvest, Kitchen Garden, vegetable Comments(13)

Yes? Yes! YES! It’s that time of the year. Nooo… not the time of cherries (although that will come too), but even better: the time to start seeds for the spring & summer kitchen garden.

I am giddy, giddy, giddy. First of all, the days are visibly getting longer. Finally! almost 8 hours of direct sun [...]

Posted in Garden, Garden Technique, Kitchen Garden, Seed Starting, vegetable Comments(3)