In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
A while ago, I posted a recipe for chayote shoots, this unusual green that’s easy to grow and that is wonderfully silky in stir-fry and braised dishes. It makes good quiches too – a racy alternative to spinach or Swiss chard. You have probably seen …
I know. It’s not in season. But I am dreaming of it, because of a post from Elise on Simply Recipes. Chayote shoot is a taste of my childhood. Around the holidays, don’t we reminisce about good memories? At some point I’ll post more info …
Back in January when I was browsing seed catalogs for interesting fruit & vegetable seeds, I came across the description ‘Hickory King’ a pre-1875 dent corn cultivar (throughout this post – and throughout my blog – I am using corn in the American sense of …
I think I love my kitchen garden more in the fall then in the spring: cooler temperatures are accompanied by a lot less bugs and the beds are brimming with salad greens (sorrel, lettuce, frisée, endive, mache, arugula), cooking greens (tatsoi, pakchoi and other mustard, …
You know there is a problem when the Virginia Department of Agriculture puts out a produce chart that shows that the only fresh produce available from Virginia in December and January are apples, herbs, greens/spinach (in December only says the chart), and sweet potatoes. Come …
Frost last night blackened part of the garden. Bad enough to burn the brillantsia, the sweet potato leaves, and a good part of the basil. Not hard enough for the tomatoes, peppers, dahlias nor strawberries for that matter. I spent most of yesterday’s afternoon picking …
In several of the old European traditions, August was the first month of autumn, the harvest season. And this year, with the especially cool summer weather, it certainly feels like it’s fall already. And harvesting, we are. Some crops have been incredibly successful, some less …
Now is when you should start your fall and winter Kitchen Garden. Truly, there are some things that should be planted in May or June for fall harvesting because those crops take a long time to mature (like celeriac, parsnip, the perennial sunchokes, winter cabbages, …
A few weeks ago, I blogged about picking up berries in the hedge rows – free wild food… well.. free as in “spend no cash”, but after several hours in the delightful mugginess and bugginess characteristic of a Virginia summer, the numerous scratches that you …
Gardening keeps you humble. Here you are: pretty proud of yourself, because you’ve been gardening for over twenty years – you’ve even had some pretty good years and raised some unusual plants; you’ve dabbled in all kinds of things; have propagated a lot of your …