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applestar
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Re: what are you eating from your garden today 2018

Yesterday, I pulled a bunch of big purslane from under the corn. Once the hot weather settles in, the leafminers make purslane inedible, so this was a good time to remove most of them from the garden as well, before the infestation becomes too severe.

I had to pick the leaves out carefully because they were already starting in a few of the leaves, but I ended up with a nice clean pile of tender tips and leaves to make a potato salad based on a recipe rainbowgardener posted a while back. I tweaked (of course... because I can’t help myself :> ) — used rice vinegar and Dijon mustard, safflower mayo+kefir; added hardboiled eggs, diced yellow sweet pepper, not quite ripe tomato, and polish dill pickles, and my own bread and butter dilly summer squash in place of capers.

Image

DH made a face about the “green stuff” but he made a potato salad sandwich between slices of potato bread, and said he liked it. Image

Subject: Purslane Potato Salad
rainbowgardener wrote:I thought I had posted this here before, but I looked and looked and couldn't find it.

Purslane is a common garden weed, but very edible - tasty and nutritious.
Image

Russian Potato Salad With Dill and Purslane

Time: 30 minutes

12 ounces whole small fingerling potatoes
3 to 4 tablespoons mayonnaise, or as needed
3 tablespoons Greek or other thick yogurt, or Lebanese laban or sour cream
1 to 2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill
2 to 3 scallions, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon brined or rinsed salt-cured capers
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice, or as needed
1½ to 2 cups purslane with tender stems, cut into 1- to 2-inch lengths, or ¾ cup purslane leaves.

1. Place potatoes in cold water to cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until just tender, about 15 minutes. Rinse with cold water and drain well.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine mayonnaise, yogurt, dill, scallions and capers. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.

3. Slice potatoes thickly, removing as much skin as easily comes off, leaving on a little for texture and ease of slicing. Add potatoes to mixing bowl, and toss gently to combine. Adjust seasonings to taste. Add purslane, fold together with potatoes, and serve.

I add celery and/ or green peppers for crunch. You could pretty much use your favorite potato salad recipe and just add purslane to it.

I am making this for a company dinner tonight! Always like to introduce people to the joys of eating weeds! :)

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applestar
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Yesterday, we had lunch with my parents at their senior community. We’ve always praised the potato salad there, but my DD2 told me “your” potato salad — meaning the one made with purslane posted above — tastes better. :-()

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digitS'
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Not potato salad with anything special, just potatoes and peas. But, that has now ended and the pea vines have been pulled. In that soil, bush bean seed has been sown.

While we wait for those Jade and Velour beans, we have plenty of snap beans to harvest at the moment :) . By the time they play out, the Rattlesnake pole beans should be producing. We will keep our fingers crossed that this late July planting of snap beans can be harvested before fall frost. I have both succeeded and failed at this in the past. The 15th of July has always worked but it would have been a shame to have pulled the peas before this week.

Fresh cucumbers, everyday! My most common location for eating a cucumber is behind the wheel of the pickup, on the way home from the garden ... refreshing!

The ripe golden cherry tomatoes continue at a trickle but they are being joined by some red cherries, the Bloody Butcher, and even a beefsteak! I couldn't identify the beefsteak because foliage has hidden the plant marker. It was also the only one ripe but that won't be the case for long!

Some of the spring greens are just distant memories but I've had baby beets until they have outgrown that designation. It's really time to move on to the chard ... and the different kale varieties have been available, right along.

Very soon ... sweet corn!

Steve
with more potatoes to dig :D

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applestar
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Peppers! I harvested some Jaloro peppers (white jalapeños) and wanted to make classic sausage and cream cheese stuffed poppers but decided to try a variation.

Diced the white Jaloros, orange Giant Sweet Devil’s Horn, and a green jalapeño that was partially starting to turn red. Diced leftover cooked bratwurst, added 1/2 cream cheese and 1/2 blue cheese dressing, grated hard cheese, nasturtium leaves, tender tip branches with leaves and tiny green peppers from the Barker’s Hot pepper plant I accidentally broke off today, EVOO. Mixed well and scooped onto hollowed out halves of baguette. Diced the center of bread and put in the bowl used for the mixture and added salt, oregano and marjoram, and EVOO, mixed well and pressed onto top of the mixture, then baked at 350 for 15 minutes until bread and croutons were toasted. Yum, yum!

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rainbowgardener
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veggie chili tonight with tomatoes, peppers, herbs from the garden.

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digitS'
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Sweet Corn!

A little too early, one of mine was yellow as it should be, the other ear was more cream color. The kernels were small but sweet!

That was Thursday and we are taking a bucket out now because there must be more! Most everything is available now although the sweet peppers apparently had just too much trouble during the spring weeks. They will need a little more time. The Galia melons will be ripening soon and the cantaloupe next.

Steve :D

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applestar
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Tomatoes, Tronchuda cabbage/kale, Dazzling Blue Kale, eggplant, Shishito peppers, sage, oregano, Purple Petra basil, and garlic were turned into a short order sauce with left over cooked hamburger patty for a sauce over bowl of brown rice last night. As the last minute, I realized I could also add celery and parsley, but was too lazy. :P

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rainbowgardener
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today I turned the tomatoes, chard, peppers, and herbs into a big batch of swiss chard lasagna (similar to spinach lasagna), which went into the freezer for winter. It is very satisfying, seeing the freezer gradually fill up! I have a bunch of canned jars of marinara, salsa, and various jellies and a lot of soups, stews, and lasagna as well as various veggies in the freezer.

Other days the veggies go into various varieties of stir fries.

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rainbowgardener
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This isn't exactly "eating from the garden" but:

Image

Another kind of harvest. That is oregano, basil, sage, lemon balm, lavender, yarrow, bee balm, tansy, spearmint, rosemary, and summer savory. There was tarragon and thyme that aren't in the picture, because they went straight into my spice cupboard. There will be more of all these to come yet this season.

PaulF
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Fifteen varieties of "black" tomatoes, a few hearts, too. Snapped a pan of second harvest green beans and the cucumbers are still going strong. Beans and cukes are from the big animal waterer raised beds. Best year ever so we will continue to use the big tubs.

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applestar
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Ao Shiso (Ao Ba - green leaf) — Japanese green perilla. It has a distinctive aroma. Larger leaves are sometimes also called Oo Ba (Big Leaf) because it is used to wrap freshly cooked hot rice in a neat little bundle to eat.

I’m currently eating mine with leftover brown rice re-heated with a little water and mild NY cheddar melted in, finished with chopped green onions and finely minced green perilla. I like it a lot — for Some reason, the flavor combo creates aroma reminiscent of mushrooms.

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digitS'
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From pictures, it looks like Ao Ba has larger leaves than the perilla that volunteers each year in my veggie garden. I have never found a kitchen use for mine but my red perilla has very pretty foliage.

Never have there been more than a half dozen volunteers although one is allowed to bloom and set seeds each of probably 6 or 7 seasons. Do I understand correctly that perilla is considered an invasive in some areas of the Atlantic states?

This year, we deliberately started more plants from seed. About 10 of those were transplanted along the driveway in a very difficult area. It's okay if the plants grow tall enough (only about 18") where they can get some sunlight. The perilla couldn't do that although it's well above 24" in the garden with full sun. Maybe, it was mostly just transplant shock. The plants did bloom, despite me trying to keep the flowers pinched off. Now, I'm worried that I may have a million volunteers next year ... still, that is difficult for me to imagine. It just hasn't been a very aggressive plant here. Wish I could trust it as an ornamental.

Steve

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applestar
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In my garden, Red is more vigorous/reliable than green. Partly because green tends to get eaten by caterpillars and slugs more than the red, but also it seems like the green ones don’t self seed and come back next year as well. A possible reason is that finches and juncos love the perilla seeds. Maybe they tend to eat the green ones’ more.

Green grows taller than the red, however, and have larger leaves. Red is more ruffled and frilly. The ones I have anyway.

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Red is stronger here. The red and green crosses. I have a lot of hybrids. The green has a milder flavor the red one is more bitter and is good for pickling in ume juice. Finding ume with juice, now that is becoming much harder.

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applestar
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Yep I have crossed ones that look like bronzed green and crossed ones that look like less purple red. The bronzed green-looking ones remind me of photos of “Korean” perilla. It is stronger than pure green but still has the green perilla aroma.

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Okra-------lots and lots of okra. I'm picking between 65-80+ pods a day right now, and that translates to 3-4 lbs. of fresh okra a day. I've pickled it, grilled it, fried it, steamed it, smothered it down for later use in gumbos and soups and have given away a lot more than I've used.

It is so prolific in my zone that I'm amazed at the price of it in the supermarkets. I was in a locally owned and operated store just a couple days ago and okra was selling for $3.99 a lb. and it was NASTY looking pods of limp, spotted okra looking like stuff I'd have tossed days before. I mean you can't really kill it unless you tried once it's established and the weather is ideal for it to flourish. Most of my plants are now 8+ ft. tall and 3 inches round at the base. Every year about this time, I start to dread having to pull them out of the garden as it is such a chore. Not only are they a lot of work to remove, but the foliage and trunks mean I have to make a dump run to get rid of it and I will fill up my full size truck bed with the plants once removed.

Some of it can be run over with a mower and added to my compost pile, but the stalks are so woody they would likely damage the mower trying to chop them up. That day is soon approaching so I can get my garden ready for fall/winter plants.

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applestar
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Peppers and squash.

I was testing a new simple tempura batter recipe and tweaked it — organic whole wheat pasty flour, potato starch, kefir whey, ice water a little baking powder, and sea salt. Used organic sunflower oil in a small frying pan. (I really don’t deep fry anything anymore)

- Bright red-as-can-be thick-walled unstriped segregate of Bill’s Striped, so essentially Giant Red Marconi
- Bright orange-as-can-be Giant Sweet Devil's Horn - not as thick-walled, but sweet
- Nutterbutter butternut squash. Tried a couple of slices with skin on but the skin is too tough, unlike true kabocha. So peeled.
- red shiso leaves

...also had some store bought carrots.

I had mine with lemon juice. DH and the DDs used a bottled noodle soup base (Mentsuyu) as substitute for tempura dipping sauce (Tentsuyu).

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Last night I had a butternut soup/curry, using a butternut from last season! This means that it was about a year, since harvesting. Amazing how long these things last. I also used a couple of the last tomatoes, some garlic, and, of course, some peppers from the garden.

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applestar
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In addition to the SVB resistance, that’s another positive quality about the C. Moschata varieties. Properly cured, they seem to last for a very long time in room temperature storage. Certainly for the entire winter without worrying about spoilage. I have a year-old Thai Kang Kob cross myself that really needs to be eaten, if only to make room for the fall harvest.

I’ve lost C.pepo and C. Maxima pumpkins and squashes mid-winter when they suddenly and quietly caved in or rotted in a pool of moldy mush. No more that 4-6 months for those, I think.


Today, I made a cucumber and myoga salad.
- Thinly sliced on diagonal cucumbers,
- equal volume myoga sliced lengthwise and floated in deep bowl of ice water to allow sand, etc. to sink, then drained and diced crosswise
- apple cider vinegar (I ran out of rice vinegar, but I think this paired well)
- tahini
- lemon juice
- honey and sea salt to taste
- small amount of salt koji for added depth of flavor (I avoid soy sauce, but that would be an option)
- on a whim, I added chunks of ripe persimmon ...alternatively, I could see adding some sectioned sweet-tart citrus ... blood orange, grapefruit, etc... possibly apples or even fresh mango or pineapple


...cucumber and myoga salad is also very good with just good mayonnaise. My current favorite is Sir Kensington organic sunflower oil mayo.

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digitS'
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The C. moschata varieties may be an answer for my problems with squash winter storage. Properly cured might continue to be a problem but we will see. I didn't really know anything about curing until recent years.

I came to believe that squash had to be consumed by or during January. However, C. moschata were not usually grown in my garden. Butternut didn't do very well at reaching maturity during the growing season. Perhaps, I just needed to find a different variety instead of placing all my bets on C. maxima. Recently, I tried keeping a Jack o'lantern pumpkin variety in the basement into the winter months. It was mostly just out of curiosity. A surprise to me was that it was still intact down there with the C. maxima into the depths of winter!

We have been eating lots of those C. maxima squash lately. I'm not complaining and it's our standard practice but the idea is for there to be few left by the first of the year. However, I have a number of C. moschata Autumn Crown. It was slow setting fruit with our cool nights but did okay, as they did a couple of years ago. I can keep one or two past January and see how they do.

Steve :D

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applestar
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I made hot pepper jelly using most of these green and blushing peppers and a selection of dead-ripe red ones harvested earlier. The ones that were starting to blush ripened some more over the past week... mostly ripe ones have turned completely red.

Image

- I used the Jalapeño pepper jelly recipe from the Complete Ball book, but because I mixed all these different varieties of hot and sweet peppers (Korean, Syrian, Japanese, NuMex, Brazilian, and Italian peppers ...there were green Peppadew in there, too where’s that from? Africa?) in varying colors, it developed a fantastic, complex flavor. I also had to tweak the sugars since I didn’t have granulated sugar — I used a blend of organic cane sugar, organic date palm sugar, raspberry orchard honey, and home-made bourbon vanilla sugar... and added a teaspoon of sea salt.

- I might take a photo or two of the hot water bathed jars for this post later — maybe tomorrow when the lighting is better.

...Although I believe they mellow and taste better after a month or so, I couldn’t get organized to preserve all of the batch, so about 1-1/2 cups went into the refrigerator, and of course I had to try some right away.

I just bought some chewy crust Italian and Semolina breads, so I tried two slices each with cream cheese and with butter. I have to say the jelly was already ridiculously good — I wanted it to be relatively mild and easy to eat ... and I found out the cream cheese slices obscured what heat there was, while the buttered slices enhanced it. Looking forward to sampling the fridge jelly over the next few weeks, and I will have four 8-oz jars in the pantry for later. :wink:

imafan26
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You can dry the red ones too and then grind them to a powder. It needs to be kept in the freezer since the pepper oils will get rancid. Drying peppers intensifies the heat.

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MariaDigsGardening
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We're after the last frost date, so focused on our winter storage. Yesterday was chicken soup with leeks, garlic, carrots, and potatoes (and chicken/broth from a local gardener). Dinner today included mashed potatoes. I'm already thinking about how to improve my garden for next year so that I have more food put up.

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applestar
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Yesterday, I made an egg salad with finely minced stems from the nasturtium leaves I harvested, plus finely minced sprig including flowers and flower buds. I also diced and added two cherry tomatoes that had managed to ripen before the plants dried up. Nasturtiums with the watercress flavor and the crunch of the stems REALLY added a lovely twist, and the egg salad only needed a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper in addition to the mayo (I think I’ve mentioned the brand I’m currently using somewhere?)


...I also made a 2 cup decoction from some Turkey Tail mushrooms that took over my Shiitake logs — cut in thin slices, put in cold water, covered and simmered for 20 minutes after coming to boil. I drank this in three doses (with a sprinkle of sea salt — I don’t know why some people sweeten mushroom tea :| ) waiting to see if there was any undue reaction after each (does feeling somewhat hot count?) I also drank a dose each of my elderberry syrup and blackberry syrup. FWIW, I’m not overly congested to the point of choking upon waking this morning like I have been for the last three or four days.

— I’ll let you know if I survive — :wink:

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digitS'
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Kale, cabbage, mustard greens, green onions ... some pea tendrils :).

Yes, the tractor guy failed in his (apparently) scheduled appearance and we made another foraging run through the big veggie garden. There was rain when it was said that he would be there.

Very, very little growing has occurred over the last month - if any. It's a little like, "oh, we missed these!" "Do you suppose these buds off the cut cabbage stem amount to enough to bother with?"

This morning, it's 20ºf.

Steve

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applestar
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Those last minute season leftover foraging can be fun, too. I was talking to my pole beans yesterday — “what are you doing growing these extra bean pods?” :lol: ...as well as snacking on unexpeced treats — alpine strawberries, a red raspberry, and some yellow raspberries. Not enough to take inside and call them a “harvest” but totally satisfying. :wink:

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Still harvesting Brussells Sprouts, Rutabaga, Carrots, Kale, leaves of coles that didn't head. Some may overwinter.

Leeks are all used. Many onions didn't properly bulb; I should probably lift them before they rot but I guess they won't store. Chop & freeze?

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rainbowgardener
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Incidentally this is the 2018 thread. There is a 2019 one here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=75691&p=427632#p427632

gumbo2176
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This years garden is fading fast. I got to planting at least a month behind due to all the rain we had earlier this year and now the heat is doing its thing to the plants. My bush beans have died out and pulled 2 weeks ago, my yard longs are fading by the day and that means less and less daily harvest and I suspect by next week they'll be pretty much dried out.

Cucumbers are showing signs of heat causing wear and tear also. Okra is thriving, as are the hot pepper plants and eggplants. Surprisingly, my squash have given me a dozen or so and so far are showing no signs of the dreaded SVB's, but I knock wood saying that. Also, my soybeans I use for edamame are doing very well and should be ready to remove next week.

I guess I'll just let what doing well keep going and get things ready for my fall planting, even though it's a bit early to think about that just now. I'm already looking forward to fall and the passing of this miserable hot weather......

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rainbowgardener wrote:Incidentally this is the 2018 thread. There is a 2019 one here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=75691&p=427632#p427632
I was wondering who would be eating from last year's garden, though I admit, I use dried peppers from there all the time, and I still have 6 butternuts that I have to use!



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