thoughts for the last day of October

One of the memories from my time in high school that I share with my mother is of my Grade 12 English teacher who famously said, "Women always resort to speaking in cliches". This rather contentious statement brought my mother and I closer because of our shared outrage - on two counts. Not only was it denigrating and incorrect as far as the implied incapacity of women to be articulate and in their own words. But we both felt that cliches, proverbs and idioms all had their place enriching spoken language. I guess in this respect "the apple didn't fall far from the tree".

But I'm "putting the cart before the horse".

 Now that it's the last day of October it feels like the long haul of winter is upon us - long days spent indoors with more time for reflection and contemplation.

It occurs to me that certain activities are particularly rich sources for the vernacular; war comes to mind - think "nosedive", "SNAFU"and "blitz"(krieg) from WWII, "brainwashing" from the Korean War and the Gulf War gave us "collateral damage". All these terms have entered the lexicon and are used in non-military contexts, understood by all. Another fertile area, more for proverbs and idioms, is agriculture. Like the military terms, they were rather literal originally, but have been transformed over time to have much more general applications quite separate from their agrarian origins.

At the beginning of each gardening season, as I turn the soil and then plant row after row of seeds, I am reminded of how I'm supposed to "reap what I sow". And my response is "if only". Take the hotboxes for example. After constructing them, filling them with manure, soil and compost, raising the peppers and eggplants from seed and finally transplanting them, it was almost all for nought. The chipmunks have had a population explosion. And they decided they had discovered their own personal "low hanging fruit" in the hotboxes. Virtually all the plants were gnawed off at the surface. I'm not one to "cry over spilt milk". So I wondered if I could reinvent the hotboxes as cold frames - may as well "kill two birds with one stone". A couple of weeks ago I planted them with dozens of lettuce seedlings and covered the tops with old windows. Last weekend I saw that the chipmunks had dug new burrows in front of the hotboxes and then tunnelled up right through them to the surface and eaten all the lettuces. It was definitely time to wage war!  But I know that's a little like "shutting the barn door after the horses are out".

Since no pesticides, insecticides or herbicides are used in the garden it may seem a little inconsistent to some that I want to reduce my surplus chipmunk population.  I suspect these same people may have no problem with getting rid of slugs and earwigs or even setting mouse traps. While it may have been more prudent to keep my lethal intentions to myself "I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb".

The hotboxes were not a success but this season did have some triumphs - it was a great year for tomatoes and beans. Greens were difficult all spring and summer but finally did well this fall. I've gardened long enough to know every year is different and "you can never count your chickens before they hatch".

The CSA is not my only source of income -  I could "never put all my eggs in one basket".

When I'm wearing my other hat as a private music teacher, my students will occasionally play something at an unbearably slow tempo. I often tell them it is "as slow as molasses in January".  Never having heard the expression they both get the point and, rather than taking offence, are often amused. I guess "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar".

As I look out the window and see all the rain and remember the halcyon days of summer, I forget the heat and drought, the aches and pains, the disappointments and frustrations. I guess "faraway pastures are always greener".

I'm thinking that all this rain has given me a bit of cabin fever and made me a little silly. I'm wondering if other people may feel the same. I guess I'm hoping that "what's good for the goose is good for the gander".

Oh well, all is just "grist for the mill"...

Trick or Treat ! (Not sure it's either - but as my mother says, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained".)

Happy Hallowe'en!

Three Seasonal Recipes

I thought I would highlight three vegetables which really shine in the fall.

Raw Kale Salad

Kale is often sauteed, or wilted, even when used in a salad. It doesn't really have to be cooked but, it does benefit (as we all do), from a massage. Most recipes recommend the stems be removed but I've also included them - and lived to tell the tale. In some ways I think of this salad as a vegetable ceviche since I think the kale really needs citrus juice added ahead of serving time to help break down the fibres. And finally, since I am a lover all three major food groups; salt, sugar and fat, I like to add pecorino or feta cheese, dried cranberries or some other dried fruit and nuts which are even better if you toast or candy them.

One Bunch of Kale (cavallo nero or Red Russian)
Lemon juice (and lemon zest if you want it really lemony)
Olive oil
Sea salt
Dried cranberries, raisins or other dried fruit
Grated pecorino, feta or chunks of avocado

Remove the stems of the kale. Roll the leaves like a cigar and slice into thin ribbons. Add olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt. Massage. The kale will turn a darker green.

Red Russian Kale

If you're adding dried fruit you can add it now and it will absorb the vinaigrette and plump up as the salad rests. I like to take the salad out of the fridge at least an hour before serving so it can come to room temperature.

Just before serving add cheese or avocado chunks.

Raw Kale Salad with dried cranberries, lemon juice and zest, tamari almonds and grated pecorino

Leek and Smoked Salmon Tart

This recipe is inspired by John Bishop of Bishop's Restaurant in Vancouver which is known for its use of local products provided by farmers who practise sustainable farming.

Leeks, about 2 cups sliced or three largish leeks

Smoked Salmon

Prebaked Pie shell

Chives (optional)

4 farm fresh eggs

2 cups light cream or 1 cup whipping cream and 1 cup milk

Slice off the root end of the leeks and slice vertically down the leaves to help rinse any dirt hiding in the foliage. Slice across the leeks into coins - you can use the leaves as well as the white part. Saute gently in butter until tender.

Washed and chopped leeks

Spread the leeks in the prebaked pie shell and top with pieces of smoked salmon. At this point you can also add chopped chives, dill or another herb of our preference. I used garlic chives because I had them at hand in the garden.

Pieces of smoked sockeye salmon and garlic chives added

Add four eggs to the cream mixture and whisk until it is mixed ( it will thicken a little too).

Pour the egg and cream mixture over the leeks and smoked salmon.

The whisked cream and egg mixture added

Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. It will puff a little and the top will turn golden.

Leek and Smoked Salmon Tart fresh out of the oven

Let it rest a few minutes before serving.

Scalloped Potatoes with Gruyere Cheese and Boar Smoked Ham

This is sort of an amalgamation of Scalloped Potatoes and Potatoes Dauphinoise

Potatoes
Gruyere Cheese
Leek Coins sauteed in butter or sliced onions (optional)
Cream or milk
Ham
Butter
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Smoked or regular paprika

The potatoes are washed and sliced.

I had a mixture of Dark Red Norland, Blue and French Fingerling potatoes 

Grate the cheese.

Grated Gruyere and sliced Boar Ham

Tear the ham into smallish pieces. We had baked a smoked boar ham we got in Thunder Bay in July. Since it had been vacuum packed there was no problem with it keeping more or less indefinitely in the fridge.

Saute the chopped leeks or onions in a little butter.

Sauteed leeks

Butter a shallow baking dish or enamelled pot.

And assemble. Start with a layer of potatoes on the bottom. Then alternate with ham and cheese and leeks is using. Finish with potatoes on top. I like to grind the salt and pepper on top and sprinkle with paprika. Then pour the cream/milk over the top and it will wash some of the salt mixture down through the layers. The dot with butter.

Ready to go in the oven

Cover with a lid. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes and then remove the lid and bake for a further 10 to 15 minutes until the top has browned.

Dinner is ready!

storing vegetables for the winter

I happened to come across the ninjamatics Canadian Weblog Awards this morning. It sounded kind of fun. If you happen to be inclined to nominate this blog that would be lovely. Nominations for 2012 close Nov. 31 (which doesn't actually exist but I'll take the whole thing on faith...) Cooper Road CSA would probably be most appropriate for the Gardening and New Weblog categories. Here is the link

http://www.ninjamatics.com/canadian-weblog-awards  

Thank you in advance if you make a nomination!  But enough of distractions - time for this week's post.

 Now that we have had a hard frost and there is a remote, but real possibility of the ground freezing hard, it is the time to finish storing vegetables for the winter. There are many possibilities including freezing, canning, drying, storing in the fridge and in a root cellar and basement.

Canning
I have been a fan of canning for quite a few years. I like the fact that once you've finished processing the jars you don't need to consume any more energy to store them. Plus they can look quite beautiful.

Jellies and jams above, various kinds of heirloom tomato sauces below

Freezing
Originally we bought a freezer for the farmhouse to take advantage of buying meat and poultry from small local producers. These farmers generally butcher their meat two or three times a year only. A freezer turns out to be the only real way to keep a good stock of locally pasture raised meat and poultry. Buying from these farmers means you are supporting local sustainable agriculture and helping to make it a viable alternative to factory farmed, antibiotic and hormone infused, inhumanely raised livestock.

Freezers work most efficiently when full. Once we had one we found it to be a great way to freeze freshly picked fruit and berries, vegetables and all kinds of pesto.

Grated zucchini for an ongoing supply of chocolate zucchini cake and zucchini bread

Oven roasted Juliet tomatoes and green beans

Flash frozen strawberries, rhubarb and cultivated blueberries

Basil, mint and garlic scape pesto and chimichurri

The Fridge

I don't have a root cellar so I store my carrots and beets in perforated plastic bags in the crisper compartment of the fridge. If they aren't washed and are stored as soon as they are pulled from the ground they can stay crisp for months.

Freshly pulled carrots; orange, white, yellow, red and two kinds of purple

Basements
Potatoes and winter squash need to be harvested and then seasoned in the sun. Potatoes aren't washed and since they can start to be harvested in the summer it usually takes just an afternoon of warm August sun to harden the skins a little. I am lucky to have a basement with a dirt floor and high ceiling. The temperature in the fall and winter hovers just above freezing - perfect for storing potatoes. I hang them in net onion bags from nails. Different varieties vary in how long they keep - some until February or March and the French Fingerlings often keep until close to May.

Banana and French Fingerling potatoes

Winter squash also needs to be seasoned in the sun but this a bit trickier since they don't ripen until late September or even October. Since it wasn't warm or sunnier enough this fall I tried seasoning them in the window sills of my unheated front porch. They like to be stored on wooden shelves at a higher temperature than potatoes. So it's a bit of an experiment to see how they'll fare in the coolish basement.

Buttercup squash, my favourite

Acorn Squash

Heeling in
This year I have tried pulling my leeks and "heeling them in".

Newly pulled leeks

You dig a trench and put the leeks in standing up (no need to trim the roots or clean them).

Then you cover much of them with soil from the trenches.

Next I placed straw on the outside "walls" and filled the whole area with fallen leaves. They should last for awhile but I'm not so sure about when we get deep snow. I guess we'll see if the supply of leeks lasts long enough for that to be an issue.

Drying

Heirloom shelling beans are shelled and dried on screens until you can't dent them with your thumb nail. Then they go into mason jars.

The garden on Thanksgiving and planting garlic

It really felt like the season changed from early to late fall this Thanksgiving weekend. The trees were ablaze on Saturday and Sunday, the skies moody with clouds punctuated by pockets of sun. And then it went down to -6C over Sunday night. By Monday morning you could actually hear the trees raining their frost rimed leaves.

Late afternoon on Thanksgiving weekend

This was the turning point weekend. Some vegetables like kale, carrots, beet greens and leeks appreciate a bit of frost to bring out their sweetness. There is always a bit of uncertainty about when to harvest winter squash; people seem sharply divided about whether it is just before or after a light frost.  Regardless of the point of view, this seemed like the time to bring in any squashes left in the garden.

Bull's Blood Beet Greens

There was no question about the snap and shelling beans. I picked what were ready on Saturday and by Monday morning those left on the plants had turned to mush.

The new greens bed

The greens have made a comeback; heirloom lettuces, spinach, sorrel, even some self seeded peas.  They will withstand ground frost and keep growing, albeit a little modestly, until the ground freezes hard and daytime temperatures hover close to 0C. All spring and summer I kept seeding kale and mustard. The germination rate was minimal and those few that did grow were ravaged by insect damage. The past few weeks we have had the cool temperatures and moisture they have been craving all along. Their happiness shows in the big, deeply coloured leaves with almost no insect damage. It's interesting how over and over again the healthiest plants have little problem with insects. It is always the weak and sickly plants that are then further disadvantaged by damage from pests and diseases.

Red Russian Kale

October is the month to plant garlic - with the optimum date being on the full moon. With two this year you'd think I could have managed to accommodate either the one on Oct. 1 or the blue moon on Oct. 29. But I was away at the beginning of the month. And with the heavy frost on Sunday night I felt like an anxious mother wringing my hands, wondering if the ground might be frozen solid by the end of the month. So the garlic went in on Monday.

Seed garlic, the new stock on the left and the mature heads on the right

After the freshly harvested garlic has been hung to air dry for  a couple of weeks and you're ready to store it for the winter, you choose your best heads to use as seed. It is also a good idea to plant some bulbils if you have let some of the garlic flower and go to seed. These little bulbils become new seed for the future  - a way of ensuring your stock stays healthy and is less likely to become prey to ongoing pest and disease problems.

A clove ready to be planted, flat end down

A few weeks ago I had added manure and compost to the bed destined for this year's garlic. When it was time to plant I scattered more manure in rows, then used the long handled cultivator to mix it in and loosen the soil. Each head is divided into its separate cloves. The cloves are planted a couple of inches deep with the flat part down. Garlic is really very forgiving so it is not crucial to worry about the space between cloves or the rows for that matter.

The new garlic bed clothed in its blanket of fall leaves

Other years I have planted the garlic much earlier and so have used grass clippings for mulch. This year I tried raking the leaves of the catalpa and mulberry which were close to hand and abundant. They seem a little big and fibrous compared to other deciduous leaves. But they will help keep reduce the fluctuations in temperature we experience at this time of year. And I'm going to count on them having broken down by next spring when the first green sprouts emerge. At that point the leaf mulch will help keep the weeds down. Being shallow rooted, garlic doesn't cope well with weeds. Nor do gardeners cope well with trying to hoe the weeds without uprooting the garlic we're trying to help.