Carrots, Turnips, and their Tops

 Well, those carrots impulsively planted around my pepper plants in June are ready to harvest. Actually, they can stay in their pots all winter long, fresh and crisper than in the fridge.
They are the biggest and juiciest carrots I've ever grown, and I love that they did so well sharing a pot of dirt with a pepper plant and a pea plant. Wow, I'm so glad I planted them.

What do you do with your carrot tops? Did you know you can eat them? Often at the Farmers Market I hear buyers asking the vendors to take away the greens. I can't help but wonder if many people know that they are not only edible, but also delicious. Why not get two meals out of one plant?
Try carrot greens chopped and added to eggs (like in a Mediterranean frittata, with feta and sun dried tomatoes) or cook them up with a mix of other greens from the market (you could use Beet greens, Turnip greens, Radish greens, Kohlrabi greens or Kale and Chard) add garlic and use them in sauces, on sandwiches or as a nice side.

And speaking of Turnips, I am also so grateful I planted so many after harvesting the garlic. The purple ones are huge now.

Did you know that Turnip tops are equal to Kale, nutritionally. Unlike Kale, they come with a fabulous root to eat too. We mostly enjoy our garden fresh turnip peeled and raw in salads, but they are also fab boiled with a little bit of salt.

Its taken a couple years, but this year I have finally clicked into Winter Gardening. It almost seems more worth it than summer gardening, because of the scarcity of fresh veggies elsewhere. What a treat.

Preserving my Lemon Tree

After killing my Meyer Lemon tree last year, I bought another one. This time from a healthier nursery. Well, it paid off, very quickly my little Lemon tree bloomed, (the flowers smelled amazing.)

 And then little green lemons grew. I was getting nervous, they were still so small and it was August. The warmth and dry growing season would not last long.

 And of course, now it is cold and wet. I think I killed my lemon tree last year by bringing it inside, and essentially shocking it. It dropped all its leaves without even going brown. The little lemons keep getting bigger so I am motivated to try to save it this year.

I am experimenting with keeping the tree wrapped in clear plastic and against the south facing wall of my front balcony, right beside my Bay Laurel. The wall is white and offers the best light and possibility of warmth out in my garden. The plastic should help keep the roots dry, which I've read is even more important for Lemons than being warm. It looks a little ugly, but I'm interested to see if it works.

Winter Gardening Update

In July I started sowing my winter veg, I sowed Rutabagas, Kohlrabi, Turnips, Radishes and Onions down in the garden, and Kale, Collards and Chard in pots on my balcony.

Everything sprouted really readily,  the turnips and radishes only took three days to sprout. I sowed them very thickly, and they needed to be thinned pretty dramatically.

Once thinned they quickly grew, and have already, one month later, started to make sizable bulbs. These are turnips, a mild Japanese variety that I totally love, the bulbs are great raw, or boiled, and the greens are delicious cooked into a sauce, stir fry or soup

This week I did my final sowing of winter veg, repeating everything, except Rutabagas, and Kohlrabi, as it is now too late for them. And I planted out my Kale, Chard and Collard starts. I really hope to be eating vegetables from my garden through the winter. We will see how it goes.

Garlic and The Winter Garden Cycle!

On July 10th we harvested our garlic. We got a huge haul this year: 150 heads, and I'm happy to say that ~100 of them are market worthy, big, beautiful and intact.  

Harvesting them has created a free bed in our garden (a pretty big one too!) It is way too late to sow summer vegetables, but a perfect time to start sowing winter vegetables. Kale is a classic winter vegetable that I have grown every single year, but this year I am experimenting with many more veggies, that, started now, can be harvested in the fall and even through the winter.

So far I've done the first sowing in only half the space I used for the garlic.  I've sown the Scallions, Turnips, Rutabaga, Kohlrabi and Radishes. And they've already come up. In this heat (our peak summer weather) it is really important that I keep them well watered. But they are growing so fast, I can tell that I will be eating them very soon. In two weeks I will do a second sowing in the garden which will involve Walla Walla Onions, and more Turnips, Radishes and Scallions. I plan to sow Arugula and Corn Salad in my containers upstairs so they are more easily accessible.

I'm so excited, especially for the Turnips, which I've recently discovered I LOVE boiled slightly in salty water (turn your water into broth after) and having their greens cooked in a tomato sauce. MMMMmmmm.

for the love of Kale

Kale and I have gotten pretty committed to each other over the years. It was one of the first plants I was drawn to growing because its easy to grow, it grows through the winter in my area, and it is incredibly healthy eating. 

Of course in those early years things weren't so easy between us, I found its taste to be fairly strong on the green side, so I grew it, but *gasp!* wouldn't eat it. It took me two years to find a variety I liked, a variety with several different names, I've heard Tuscan Kale, Dinosaur Kale,  Black Kale or Lancinato Kale, it all is the same tasty and beautiful plant. This was my gateway eating Kale, but still for a couple of years I would only eat it cooked, chopped and thrown in a pasta sauce, or, when feeling very brave chopped and sauteed only with oil, salt and chilli flakes.  Then after eating fresh garden greens through the winter for a few years I came to LOVE the taste, maybe because it was making me feel so good, or maybe I just got used to it. Now, I eat it raw as well, and have expanded my Kale selection to include Curly Kales, which lend themselves nicely to raw winter salads. 

The winter gardens are one of the payoffs for living in the rainy climate. I will always start Kales and Chards in the Spring for Summer eating, and then start more seeds in June, plant them out in July and let them get big so that you can eat those all winter long.

This is my "Winter Garden" before I dug it, I chose this location because it faces south, is somewhat sheltered from the rain and is really well drained.

Here it is dug and planted, I actually emptied out the soil from some of my super large containers into this bed to hill it up a little, and to reduce the clay content a bit.

One of the Tuscan Kale transplants. You can direct sow Kale, but I like to start the seeds indoors to help differentiate the seedling from weed seedlings. This may change as I become more experienced.

 Swiss Chard on the left, Kale on the right. They are getting bigger, I usually start eating off them at this point. Just taking one or two leaves at a time, giving them lots of time to rejuvenate.

Happy times in late June, the plants are really established and the eating is good.

Late July abundance. I have intercropped on a big scale, there is the tall sunflower at the far left, two Kales, and a Brussels Sprouts plant on the right. This is the first year I may actually get Brussels Sprouts. You can't even see the Chard anymore amongst all this green. Planted throughout the bed are bush beans like kidney and black, planted to fix nitrogen in the soil, and maybe even to feed me. 

Finally here is a recipe for a dressing to try with raw kale, something hearty to compliment it:

Miso Orange Honey Dressing

Blend together:

2tbs Miso

1 Orange, peeled and seeded

1tbs Honey 

2tbs or more Oil (like flax or sesame or olive oil)

Black or Tan Sesame seeds are also great to add.