Food

Stuff that tastes good.

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Hot For Horseradish

This is a love story about all things hot.  Not hot like the sun, but hot to your taste.  We love foods that have a little heat to them here on Glen Road.  In fact, we are always taking recipes and putting a little heat into them.  We add cherry peppers into broccoli rabe, we put cayenne pepper into almost anything and there is nothing better than cold clams with tabasco sauce, to name a few.  However, our favorite is freshly roasted beef or a polish sausage with a little side of homemade horseradish.  Funny thing is, we don’t have any horseradish that grows in our garden.  When we want horseradish, we need to buy the root at our local organic produce market.  Well, this is about to change because we have planted a bed of five horseradish roots.  The five little brown stalks appear to be so innocent, but in a year they will produce thick roots that are filled with fire.  These roots were planted down from our newly planted rhubarb patch, right behind the espalier apple trees.  Let’s get the heat started with a little horseradish history from the internet:

Horseradish (Armoracia rusticana) is in the brassica family, which includes turnips, kale, mustard greens, broccoli rabe, daikon radish and many other plants with varying degrees of pungency and a similar taste.  Native to the temperate regions of Europe and Asia, it is an ancient herb.  The Romans carried horseradish to Europe as a medicinal herb and as a flavoring.  It was cultivated in Egypt before the exodus of the Hebrew slaves around 1500 B.C., and is often the symbolic bitter herb at the Passover Seder.

By the 16th century, the pungent root was spreading throughout England, where it was described for  its many uses, including as an aphrodisiac, a treatment for tuberculosis, a mustard plaster and a dewormer.  The common name probably evolved from the German “meerrettich,” which means sea-radish, which was misunderstood by the English, who associated “meer” with “mahre,” an old horse.

Undisturbed, the root doesn’t have a strong smell or flavor. But crushing or grinding it produces isothiocyanates, a kind of mustard oil, which is what gives horseradish its flavor and heat.  Adding vinegar stops the reaction because it’s an acid.  It also stabilizes the isothiocyanates, so you can still get that flavor a week later.  Tradition calls for grinding the root outside, because the chemical reaction triggered creates a gas that not only makes you weep, but can irritate lungs and nostrils.  This is actually a defense mechanism for the plant if it’s wounded.

We planted our horseradish in a long furrow about six inches deep.  Each root has a top and a bottom identified by the slicing made by the grower.  The top is identified by a straight slice and the bottom is identified by a diagonal slice.  When we placed them in the furrow, we put them in at an angle, with the straight sliced top pointing upwards.  Once in place, we covered the top of the roots with about four inches of soil, pressed the soil into place and watered.  While we won’t harvest any horseradish this year, the roots will produce beautiful green leaves that will make a nice complement to the equally as beautiful rhubarb leaves that we previously planted along the back side of the espaliers.  Next year, we will harvest and grind a few of the roots, add some white vinegar and salt and begin to enjoy some heat.  As my Grandmother used to say, we can only harvest the roots in months that contain an ‘R’ in them.  Months that don’t contain an ‘R’ are too hot and the root will not produce optimal flavor.

So here’s to horseradish, named “Herb of the Year 2011” by the International Herb Association.  We will look forward to your pretty leaves this year and then the addition of your hotness to our meats, mashed potatoes and seafood in 2012.  We can’t wait.  What hot foods do you and your family like to cook or eat?

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When Rhubarb And Strawberries Unite

 This pie always reminds me of Spring.  It is a rhubarb and strawberry pie with a lattice top crust.  Making a pie is always intimidating to me.  It’s the crust.  Either I have a problem rolling it out or I have a problem getting it into the pie pan.  A lot of people tell me they have the same issues, but I keep trying to perfect the art of pie making here on Glen Road.  This pie was a surprise in that for the first time in a long time I didn’t have any issues.  I even put a lattice top on it without making myself nuts.  It must have been the deep breaths and the frequent praying.  The idea of rhubarb and strawberries mixed together in this pie was so perfect for Spring.  I couldn’t wait to get a piece.  We’ve talked about rhubarb and strawberries a lot here on Acorns On Glen.  Spring just seemed the perfect time to mix them together for everyone to enjoy.  Let’s get baking!

 Ingredients:

For crust:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Up to 10 tablespoons ice water
For filling:
3 1/2 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices of trimmed rhubarb (1 1/2 pounds untrimmed)
1 16-ounce container strawberries, hulled and halved (about 3 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg yolk beaten to blend with 1 teaspoon water (for glaze)

Directions:

Make crust:  Combine flour, sugar and salt into a food processor.  Using the pulse button, cut in shortening and butter into the flour mixture until coarse meal forms.  Blend in enough ice water (2 tablespoons at a time) to form moist clumps.  Gather dough into a ball; cut in half.  Flatten each half into a disk.  Wrap separately in plastic; refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour (can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled. Let dough soften slightly at room temperature before rolling).

Make filling: Preheat oven to 400°F.  Combine first 7 ingredients into a large bowl.  Toss gently to blend.

Assemble pie:  Roll out 1 dough disk on floured work surface into a 13-inch round.  Transfer to a 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish.  Trim excess dough, leaving a 3/4-inch overhang.  Place into refrigerator so the crust can continue to chill after being worked with in this step.  Chilled pie dough bakes the best.

Roll out second dough disk on a lightly floured surface into another 13-inch round.  Cut into fourteen 1/2-inch-wide strips.  Spoon filling into crust.  Arrange 7 dough strips on top of filling, spacing evenly.  Form lattice by placing remaining dough strips in opposite direction on top of filling.  Trim ends of dough strips even with overhang of bottom crust.  Fold strip ends and overhang under, pressing to seal.  Crimp edges decoratively.  Brush glaze over crust.  Place pie back into refrigerator so that it can chill again for several minutes.  Chilled pie dough bakes the best.

Transfer pie to baking sheet.  Bake 25 minutes.  Reduce oven temperature to 350°F.   Bake pie until golden and filling thickens, about another 30-35 minutes.  Transfer pie to rack and cool completely.

During cooking, it is important to keep an eye on the pie and keep baking until the sauce in the pie gets thick (versus watery in form).  This may mean you will need to cover the edges of the crust with aluminum foil or a crust cover to prevent it from burning.  Once the sauce is thick, you know the pie is ready to take out of the oven.  The sauce will continue to thicken during the cooling process.  You can eat this pie plain or with a scoop of ice cream on top.  Eating something fresh and in season is the eighth wonder of the world.  This pie is the right pick for Spring.  I hope you like it.  What other Spring recipes are you cooking in your home?

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Easter Bunny Martini

This is a martini recipe to help you celebrate Easter.  It also helps calm your nerves if you are cooking for a large group or if you are around family members that are annoying you.  Don’t let the look of the martini fool you.  While it looks like a creamy chocolate milkshake, there is enough vodka in it to make any Easter (or any day) a good one.  It was made by Jeff the Bartender at Toscana Restaurant in Ridgefield, CT, http://www.toscanaridgefield.com.  If you live in the area, go there for some great Italian food.  Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

  •  1/3 combination of Absolut vodka and Absolut vanilla vodka
  • 1/3 Godiva chocolate liqueur
  • 1/3 dark creme de cacao
  • 1 small chocolate bunny (for garnish)

Directions:

Place ingredients into a martini shaker with ice.  Shake well with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass.  Using a small knife, make a slice upwards under the ribs of the chocolate bunny.  (Attention animal lovers:  this will not hurt the bunny).  Hook on the rim of the martini glass and drink.

Enjoy your bunny martini and have a Happy Easter…..if you can remember it after drinking this martini.  What holiday themed drinks do you make for your family and friends?

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Never Met Bread That I Didn’t Like

This is a quick recipe.  We eat a ton of Italian food here on Glen Road (have you noticed?).  What goes better with Italian food than garlic laced, herbed bread?  Nothing, trust me, nothing.  I have never met bread that I didn’t like.  Give this garlic herbed bread a try one night at dinner.  You and your family will love it. 

Ingredients:

  • 6 large garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped basil leaves
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup good olive oil
  • 1 large baguette

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the garlic, parsley, basil, salt and pepper in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process until finely minced.

Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat.  Add the garlic and parsley mixture and cook for 1 minute, until the garlic is tender but not browned.  Remove from the heat and set aside.

Slice the baguette lengthwise down the center, but not all the way through, and spoon the garlic mixture into the bread.  Place the bread on a sheet pan and bake for 8 minutes.  Slice diagonally and serve warm.

Super quick and super easy.  The kind of recipe that I like.  If you are in a pinch, I’ve also used dried parsley and basil flakes when I didn’t have fresh herbs on hand.  It won’t yield the same flavor intensity as using fresh herbs, but it does come out very tasty.  Give this bread a try and let us know how you liked it.  What other bread recipes do you have that you can share on Acorns On Glen?

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The Brooklyn Italian Grandmother Is Back And Cooking

This is our Brooklyn Italian Grandmother back in the kitchen and digging into a pile of broccoli rabe.  Otherwise known as cooking with your fingers only up to the base of your rings.  We can dig that, can you?  What has happened to the world of broccoli rabe these days?  They steam it….good for you.  Yuch, it is tasteless!  They stir fry it.  O.K., but limp and mushy.  They saute it in water.  That’s called boiling it where we come from.  We asked our Brooklyn Italian Grandmother to come back into the kitchen and make it the good old-fashioned way so that we could share it with everyone.  This is a great side dish and is quick and easy.  When you are making an Italian dish, cook up some broccoli rabe and see what the family says.  While many people say it has a bitter taste, we have found that if you cook it up the Brooklyn way, the rabe is soft and delicious.  I’ve held the Brooklyn Italian Grandmother down and measured and forced her to tell me her recipe.   So let’s take what I’ve forced out of her and cook up some broccoli rabe and go jewelry shopping all in one post.

Ingredients:

  • 2 large heads of broccoli rabe.  I found organic and super fresh.  We beg you to do the same.  Your body doesn’t need the chemicals. 
  • 3 tablespoons great olive oil
  • 7 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped.  More or less depending on how much you love garlic.  We adore it so use 7 cloves if you are truly a garlic lover.
  • 1 cup chicken stock, again go organic if you can
  • 1 chicken bouillon cube
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, or more to flavor to your liking
  • 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper or more to your liking
  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes or more/less to taste.  We like it spicy.

Directions:

Trim the stalks of the brocolli rabe and rinse under cool water.  Roughly chop garlic cloves.

  Rings always look better with a garlic scent to them.  Multiple bracelets support the wrist during the chopping process.

Over medium heat, heat the olive oil and then add the chopped garlic and sautee until garlic is lightly golden in color.

Add the chicken broth and the chicken bouillon cube until they are lightly heated.  Then add the cleaned and rinsed broccoli rabe.  Don’t be nervous if the rabe is stacked high in the skillet.  It will quickly wilt down to a reasonable amount.

  What takes away from beautiful green, organic and fresh rabes more than diamonds and solid gold?

Lightly place a skillet lid on top of the broccoli rabe and continue to adjust it while the rabe wilts down.

  Lid protects jewels from damage but also allows steam to lightly clean the gems.  We call this multi-tasking.

As the broccoli rabe wilts down during the cooking process, raise the lid and add a teaspoon of salt to flavor during cooking.  Place the lid back on the rabes and saute for about 10 minutes.  Lift lid and turn over the broccoli rabe so the bottom is now on the top and place the lid back on for another 10 minutes.  Continue cooking until rabes are al dente, meaning tender but they still possess a little chewiness to them.

   Diamonds are forever….sing it.

When tender, add another half a teaspoon of salt and the pepper or more to flavor the broccoli rabe to your liking.  Add the red pepper flakes to add a little heat.  If you like it hot, add more.  If you can’t take the heat, don’t add any red pepper flakes.  Use your own judgement. 

Come on…have you ever seen such a beautiful and exotic side dish to complement your favorite Italian dish?  Broccoli rabe is not for everyone, but it is for most people that we have served it to in the traditional Brooklyn Italian Grandmother way.  Who needs to light up their life when you can rabe up your life?  Just a little hint–some great bread is delicious when you use it to dip in and soak up the broth from the rabes.  And remember, it also is a great way to clean your jewelry in an organic sort of way.  Give it a try….you won’t be sorry.  What side dishes can you share on Acorns On Glen that would be great with Italian food? 

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Meet The Mantis

This is my new toy.  It is a Mantis 4-cycle rototiller.  I am going to use it in the raised bed garden to ready the rest of my soil for planting.  It will be great to turn my winter rye grass cover crop into the soil so that it can break down and release needed nutrients into the garden soil.  It will also cut down on my sore back and knees due to the fact that I won’t need to do these chores by hand anymore.  It will up to the Mantis (with a little help from me).

My Mantis weighs only 24 pounds and, given that it only have two tines attached, it is perfect for my small raised bed garden.  The tines can quickly cut through sod, clay, compacted soil or weeds.  It can also dig down 10 inches so my plants can establish themselves in soil that’s cool, deep and water retentive.  I’m hoping to use it all season–to dig my beds and plant my garden and then all the way to the end of the season when I will turn it all under and re-establish a new cover crop.

My Mantis is easy to start and there is no fuel mixing required.  It is 9 inches wide and has fold down handles.  It can run most of the day on one gallon of gas due to its powerful, Honda 4-cycle engine.  It even has a kickstand so I can “park” my rototiller anywhere and the kickstand flips up when I am tilling the soil.

The easy-grip handles include an on/off switch, a lock key that must be released before the rototiller can operate and an accelerator handle to start the tines working.  The tines are guaranteed for life, so I can only imagine how strong they work.  The tines can spin up to 240 rotations per minute, so that is plenty for the garden that I have here in Connecticut.

I can’t wait to get into the garden with my new toy and do some tilling.  I was so happy when I received the box containing my Mantis.  It reminded me of a little kid getting a bright, red wagon.  So watch out cover crop, your days are numbered.  My Mantis and I are coming to till until we drop…or run out of gas, whichever comes first.  What cool gardening tools are you using in your garden?

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Raising Rhubarb

This is what I received this week…some rhubarb crowns ready for planting.  I have been obsessing about planting rhubarb, also know as rheum rhabarbarum, here on Glen Road for quite some time.  I’m sure it has to do with wanting to grow something that reminds me of my youth.  You must all know at this point that my Grandma was a great gardening inspiration in my life.  My Father was also inspirational, but due to my close relationship with Grandma, she brought me slowly into the process and let me get into the garden when I wanted to do it.  She slowly made me value it.  You know how it goes with parents…they want to bring you into it, but many times you feel forced and then you end up crying and rebelling and not wanting to do it.  I guess that is the sad story of all teenage angst…sorry Dad and Mom.  I’ve talked about her horseradish a few times, but my Grandma also had a killer rhubarb patch.  We ate a lot of rhubarb in Spring…rhubarb sauce, rhubarb pie….all of it so fresh and so tasty.  There were times my brother and I would snap off a stalk and chew on the tangy sweet and sour fruit in her backyard.  Do any of you remember the Schwann’s man?  In our town in Iowa, the Schwann’s man drove a pinkish peach truck up the road and you could stop him and buy frozen items.  Grandma bought pizza dough and ice cream.  In the Spring, she scooped this ice cream into whatever rhubarb creation she had made for the night.  How great was that? 

So I wanted to plant a rhubarb patch for a long time and this year, I got my wish.  I planted six crowns this weekend in some well-drained soil.  The patch was in a location that received full sun, just behind the two espalier apple trees.  I set the crowns about a foot apart, which is a little tight, but I’m sure they will be fine.  I watered the crowns very well and then placed a little over one inch of soil on top of them.  Then I firmly tamped down the soil to prevent any dry pockets from forming around the tender crowns.

There will be no harvest this first year.  During the second year, there may be a light harvest, actually a few stalks (botanically, actually petioles) per plant.  In subsequent years, all stalks one inch or more in diameter may be harvested for six to eight weeks.  The harvest period is from May to June.  Some harvesting in Fall is acceptable if we feel the urge.  However, smaller stalks should be left to make food for the crowns and next year’s production.  We will harvest by snapping or cutting the stalks at the base.  We need to remember to remove seed stalks to encourage additional stalks in the next year.  What I also know is that rhubarb leaves from un-harvested stalks are quite beautiful.  Don’t be afraid to plant them in a prominent spot in your garden given their beauty.

After three to five years, we will need to divide the crowns to maintain stalk size and production.  A well-maintained patch will last 10-15 years or longer.  That sounds like such a long time, but as my Grandma used to say, time goes by much quicker the older you get.  Here’s to a few stalks next year.  Do you grow rhubarb in your garden?

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Strawberries and Bread

This is a pint of organic strawberries.  I got them at the organic market this week and needed to use them or they were going to go bad.  That’s the problem with strawberries for me.  You quickly need to use them or they need to be thrown out.  I know, you’re saying to me “that’s why them call them fresh”, but I wish they could last a little longer.  You know, like an apple or a pear.  Even given this one downside, the taste of a strawberry is one of my favorite fruit flavors.  So what should I make with them?  Shortcake seemed a little too summer like.  Strawberry ice cream was out given that it is still a little cold outside.  So I decided on making strawberry bread.  This recipe makes a very moist bread marbled with crushed strawberries.  It is a real change of pace and a great way to use those pesky strawberries that seem to lose their freshness way too fast.

Ingredients:

  • 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon unsalted butter softened, plus more for pan
  • 1 pint strawberries rinsed, hulled, quartered, and mashed with a fork
  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-by-4-inch loaf pan. In a small saucepan, bring strawberries to a boil over medium heat. Cook, stirring, 1 minute. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar, and eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

Add flour mixture alternately with 1/3 cup water, beginning and ending with flour.

Fold in reserved strawberries.  Scrape batter into prepared pan, smoothing top.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 1 hour (tent with foil after 45 minutes if top is getting too dark). Cool in pan 10 minutes. Run a knife around edges; invert onto a rack. Reinvert; cool completely.

I love that the loaf is so golden brown in color and I wish you could have smelled my kitchen.  The smell of baking bread and strawberries filled the air.  Add a little butter or cream cheese to a slice for an added taste bonus.  This bread is great for breakfast, a snack or any time you need something a little sweet.  Try strawberry bread for a real change of pace.  Your bananas will be jealous.  What have you been baking this weekend?

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When Did I Become Such A Follower?

This is the question I’ve been thinking about since we started Acorns On Glen.  When did I become such a follower?  Not when I was a kid.  In fourth grade, in the comments section of my report card, my teacher wrote that I was good at leading other children towards a common goal…..and that I was a good talker.  I was an officer in one of my grades in high school….I think it was freshman year.  I was editor of my school newspaper for a few years.  All signs were pointing in the right direction.  I was still a leader in college.  I was president of my pledge class at the fraternity.  I was a member of the elite summer orientation staff for incoming freshman.  Again, all signs were a go.   So when, as an adult, did I stop producing original ideas and leadership potential?  My vote…..when my sad ass discovered the internet and that damn do-it-yourself television.

Think back to your grandparents.  How did your grandmother learn to cook something simple, say a meatloaf?  She either learned by word of mouth or she learned by trial and error.  The recipe could have been handed down from generations of hard cooking women in her family.  She could have talked to a sister or a neighbor about making meatloaf and wrote down the ingredients and instructions that they gave her and then began to cook.  She used real, live human interaction versus online social networking.  She could have also gotten the idea in her head and cooked it through several different incarnations making sure to tweak things she didn’t like from the time before and remembering to keep things in it that were good.  Old time trial and error versus instant internet gratification.  With my family, maybe my father, aunts and uncle didn’t like my Grandma’s first shots at meatloaf making, but by the time I was a child, she had perfected her art.

The garden is the same story.  How did my Grandmother know to only dig horseradish and grind it up in months that contained an ‘R’ in them?  She was right.  Months without an ‘R’ produce lousy horseradish…Julys and Augusts are just too hot.  Again, she had an idea and either consulted a real, live person or experimented on her own.  Somehow, she managed to figure things out.  She must have talked with someone on the rules of horseradish or sat down to some sad tasting pulp, but she figured it out.  She accomplished tasks knowing she had done her own research, made all the decisions and had done it her way.  She was her own expert.

Now take me!  I’ll confess.  I look at all of the things that I do to my house, that I cook or bake in the kitchen or that I grow in my garden, and while I’m proud of my accomplishments, they have most likely come from someone else’s original idea.  Ideas from others that I’ve said “Wow, I’d like to do that” and either copied or took the initial idea and tweaked it to fit my lifestyle.  When is the last time I sat down and said I’d like to make a dish in the kitchen that contained a certain ingredient and then added it and other ingredients in a bowl trying to create my tasty little idea?  Never.  If I ever did do that, God forbid if it was bad tasting.  Would I try it again with some new twists or would I just abandon the idea altogether?  If the first time was a flop, would I try to think it through and make it a success a second or third time?  I doubt it.

I’ve made meatloaf and worked in my garden recently, just like my Grandma did years ago.  My meatloaf recipe came straight off the internet from http://www.MarthaStewart.com.  I found the recipe in less than a minute.  As I printed my step-by-step instructions out, I sat there in a panic thinking what was meant by “good” ketchup in the recipe.  What the hell is “bad” ketchup?  In the garden, I decided to plant artichokes this year and see if they would grow in Connecticut.  How did I come up with this idea?  A picture showing them growing in my area off of someone else’s iPhone.  So what was my next step?  I googled “artichoke growing” on the internet and received hundreds of sites with step-by-step growing instructions.  So I then ordered the seeds (off the internet) from a seed company I saw mentioned on a TV show and then planted them in a growing system I heard described on the radio and then put them under a grow light I saw on another internet site.  By the way, the grow light had four and a half stars attributed to it on the internet meaning it was a customer top favorite.  How could I get the one that seemed better, but with fewer stars attributed to it?  Do you see what I’m saying?  Not one original idea in my head.  No leadership; no innovation; no thought leadership.  I’m a lemming just following the leader until I eventually fall off the side of a cliff.

In business today, there must be a slew of followers.  Perfectionist people who scour for innovation and new ideas by reading the internet for hours.  Site by site; post by post.  Anything new and exciting is printed off or typed into their computer.  They search on Google to find exactly how to make the idea a reality.  They tweak the original just a little to call it their own.  Then they introduce the final product to the world.  In fact, aren’t followers in the business world now called great executors?  This new term utilized in order to soften the blow to a group of people trained to follow others versus taking a risk on their own.  An executor, that’s what I am.  Not a leader or a thought provoker, but rather someone who can execute someone else’s idea to perfection.  My meatloaf looked just like the picture in Martha’s recipe; my grow light artichokes are picture perfect. 

Ideas=F; Execution=A+……that’s me. 

I curse you, Martha, Emeril and Ina.  Up yours, Vern and you Design Stars.  May seeds never grow in your Victory Garden, Old Man Crockett! 

So how do people of today change this course?  How do we become thinkers again versus just executing?  If my Grandma were here, I’m sure she could sit down and think up a solution.  Me?  I’m just going to Google it.  What do you think about leaders versus followers in today’s world?

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News From The Garden

This is an update on our 2011 garden.  We want to keep everyone up to date on what’s going on outside in the actual garden and inside under the grow light.  This weekend provided some great weather (finally!) to really spend some quality time in the garden.  We started the morning planting the remaining seeds into our last APS 24 growing system and placed them in the basement under the grow light.  Our earlier planting was with seeds that prefer cooler soil temperature.  This weekend, it was seeds that prefer warmer soil temperatures.  Remember, our two batch planting philosophy?  The seeds planted this weekend included three varieties of tomatoes and artichokes.  Yes, artichokes!!  We’ve heard that they can grow and prosper in Connecticut, so we thought this would be our fun garden experiment for 2011.  Can Glen Road enjoy some stuffed artichokes at harvest time?  Keep your fingers crossed.

Inside the house, the first batch of seeds placed under the grow light are actually growing quite nicely.  We’re happy to say that all of the seeds have sprouted and we have identified the strongest seedlings and removed the others in the cell.  Only one plant per cell allowed.  The weaker sprouts were removed by clipping them off with a pair of scissors.  While the cabbage, brussels sprouts and cauliflower are over an inch high now, the eggplant is a little smaller and growing more slowly, so we decided to wait two more weeks before we remove their weaker seedlings.  The picture above is a look at our cabbage and here are the smaller eggplant seedlings.

Outside we were able to expand our seed planting to more than just spinach.  Since the spinach seeds have been out in the garden since Thanksgiving 2010, we thought it was only fair to plant six more rows of seeds and grow some friends for the spinach.  First, we turned under the crop cover of winter rye grass so that it would start to decompose and enrich the soil with its nutrients.  Then we planted some seeds that thrive in early Spring’s cooler soil.  This included one row of round radishes, two rows of French breakfast radishes, two rows of lettuce mix and one row of arugula.  After the rows were planted, we stretched out a longer piece of floating row cover and placed it over all the rows of vegetables that are in the garden-the six rows planted today and the four rows of spinach that have been there since last year.

We were wondering when the floating row covers could be removed for good and had gotten some mixed answers, so we decided to consult with an expert and last week asked when the covers could be permanently removed to none other than Martha Stewart on her live radio show.  She told us that the row covers needed to be in place for quite a while longer as it is just too cold to remove them at this time.  She said it was fine on warm days to pull the cover up and let the plants be in the direct sunlight, but that we needed to cover them back up before nightfall.  We also started to talk about a few vegetables that we don’t grow because they spread out too much and take over the limited space we have in our raised beds.  She said we should reconsider our stance on growing such things as cucumbers, zucchini and peas.  So we started thinking and surfing the internet.

What we found was an idea that we saw on several different gardening sites that we visited.  We took a trip to our local farm supply store and bought a 16 foot livestock panel.  A livestock panel is actually used for temporary fencing on a farm.  In our case, we used a bolt cutter to turn the one piece panel into two, 8 foot panels.  Each panel was then taken into two of the raised beds and the cut ends were pushed into the soil and then the panels was gently leaned up against the garden fencing.

                                           

Later in Spring, we will accumulate some dirt into mounds in each of the beds at the base of the fencing and plant cucumbers and zucchini.  We will then train the vines to grow upwards and weave through the panels with the vegetables hanging down from the panels, making them easier to pick.  Since the vines will grow upwards versus outwards on the ground, it means more room for other plantings in our small garden.  We’ve asked whether the vegetables will drop off their vines due to their weight and upward growth and everyone has told us not to worry.  We believe them, but we secretly have our doubts. 

So for the beginning of April, we are feeling that our garden is on schedule and everything is growing as expected.  From here on out, we know that the garden will consume a lot of our time, but the result is worth it.  Nothing tastes better than home-grown vegetables.  Are you working in your garden right now or is it still too cold?