From ever-faithful Garden Commentor Marvel:
We’re doing well and getting busier by the day, harvest-wise.
Our run of cool days changed with a vengeance last week (highs over the weekend of 103, 106[!] and 101 followed by a couple of century-marked days this week) so, breaking out an assortment of umbrellas purchased over the years at End-of-Summer Sales, we opened Bistro Gardens. We spent much of our time hosing down the guests.
We harvested the onions last month and they’ve been drying/curing in the breezeway, getting ready for their off-season stay in the garage. This year a fair number of them bolted (you can thee the hollow flower/seed stalks here) and won’t be suitable for long-term storage. We’ll dice & freeze about half of these and (here comes the yummy part) the rest I’ll cook into quarts of French onion soup (which I’ll freeze). Sometimes garden failures work out OK.
Yesterday I brought in some of those odd-but-lovely veggies, kohlrabi….. (Kohlrabi????? What the heck do you DO with it?????)
I’m peeling and slicing them mighty fine, saute-ing a few chopped-up leaves, then cooking it all in a pie with bacon, cream and nutty cheese. We may or may not pick the kohlrabi slices out before eating. The orbs’ll last a long time in the crisper, so I’ll probably just chop up some and toss ’em in soups later on.
The first batch of pears are out of cold storage & done with their photogenic ripening work on the counter (I caught them sitting here with the dramatic late-day sun blazing through the kitchen window)– it’ll be cool enough tomorrow to make some pear bread and maybe I’ll steam a big slug of pear juice (for jelly later on).
No pictures of tomatoes — so far this year, with our very cool Spring & early Summer, the plants are full of green, will-they-never-ripen-? fruit and I don’t know if any will ever get red. I have a swell recipe for a savory green tomato & apple chutney….
***********
What’s going on in your garden(s) this week?
Mary G
Love the pears under the painting of pears, which is gorgeous. You have mad photography skills, Marvel. Thanks for all your posts.
JR in WV
So what does kohlrabi do for soup? Is it anything like cabbage, which if not over cooked can do great things in a clear broth type soup?
I’ve never tried it, for fear that it might be similar to brussels sprouts. These look like invasive vegetables from Mars, and taste worse than that.
I know some enjoy B. sprouts, but I’m not one of them. Worse than cilantro to people who don’t have the flavor genes for that wonderful herb. And at that, I like them better than Mrs J, who won’t even look at them on their stem, from which they sprout.
Jeannet
I love those umbrellas in the garden – so festive looking!
We hardly ever cook our kohlrabi – SOMEDAY I intend to make succession plantings so that after eating the first harvest raw, the second and third rounds could be used more creatively.
In my garden (Grand Rapids, MI) I am harvesting kale, peppers, lettuce, slicing tomatoes and looking with glee and alarm at all the black cherry tomatoes that are just starting to ripen. Lots of parsley and basil. Several of my tomato plants suffered blight after setting fruit, but I rescued some of the green beefsteaks in hope they’ll ripen indoors. I’m also monitoring my Sugar Baby watermelons closely; surely they’ll be ready soon!
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
OzarkHillbilly
Anything you would do with cabbage. I like it in salads. The trick is, don’t let it turn to wood.
@JR in WV: I lurves me some Brussels sprouts.
Raven
Sweet!
p.a.
2 lessons I already knew but had to ‘relearn again’ (may be some Packlet in my dna):
1. Do not try to get a 2nd year from parsley.
2. Only buy plants from the Big Orange Box as a last resort; use local garden shops.
2a. Especially if the B O B employees tending the plants don’t look like they can legally purchase alcohol.
Other than that, my modest garden (cherry & grape tomatoes, assorted hots peppers, bell p’s, swiss chard (1st try, doing fine), and some horridly bitter leaf lettuce that grows on tall thin stalks, herbs) is doing fine.
Denali
The weeds in my garden are doing very well.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.:
The tall thin stalks are saying, “I want to reproduce” or in human language, it has bolted. At that point it is no longer fit for human consumption.
JPL
It’s been so hot, that the plants would flower, but not bear fruit. My peppers are finally start to produce though. I’m thinking about my fall garden now.
Immanentize
Morning, All!
No swimming today rikyrah?
Beautiful garden gems, Marvel — and the bistro garden idea is great!
Just north of Boston, my tomatoes and peppers are coming in fast and furious. For peppers I have Anaheim, poblano, Serrano and jalepenos that are doing fine. I tried a new variety — semi hot — that all rotted at their ends. I also grow tomatillos which are doing great. Some were ready this week, but I am usually harvesting the bulk of those as the first frost approaches. I think because it has been so relentlessly dry and hot here, they thought it was Texas and cooperated with an early harvest.
Monkeyfister
kohlrabi soup
Starts with a basic Manhattan Chowder base…
In a pot, sweat onion in olive oil, add garlic 1/2 way thru. Add some oregano and a bit of basil, salt/pepper to taste. Add whole canned tomatoes which you break up as you add them. Add peeled, diced kohlrabi + some of their greens. Top with water. Bring to boil, then simmer until kohlrabi are tender.
I make this also with broccoli and sometimes with cauliflower.
Monkeyfister
@JR in WV: kohlrabi has a crisp texture, and sweet flavor like the heart of a cabbage. It’s delicious peeled with a bit of salt. Don’t let them get big and woody. I put a soup recipe up here in comments.
p.a.
@Immanentize: I know, hot & dry here in RI. I’ve never given a frak about lawn, I keep it trimmed but never water, whatever grows, grows. My poor neighbors try, and I have a feeling my ‘nursery’ is why they fail; fortunately there are some unimproved lots I can blame their weeds on if they ever decide to look at causes. One neighbor is a landscaper. His streetfront is all concrete and stone. I told him mine is xeriscape. “Fuck you that’s crabgrass!” ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
Sounds like blossom end rot to me, which is caused by a lack of calcium. It is most common in tomatoes but I have had it in peppers too. Try watering the plants with a mix of epsom salts and water (can’t find the mix proportions just now). Other tricks, treatments, and explanations of BER can be found here:
Blossom-End Rot: Prevention and Treatment
Immanentize
Kohlrabi —
My Dad was fist generation Czech (his father from Moravia and his Mother from an indeterminate space somewhere in the bohemian or Czech part of the Austrian Empire). He loved kohlrabi but it was never in stores as a kid so it was his summer great when some friend or neighbor grew it and gave him some.
He had a sort of creamed kohlrabi recipe which was pretty simple:
Peel and slice a head of Kohlrabi (don’t use the leaves) into maybe 1/4 inch slices like sticks — let that soak in water in the fridge for a bit. Chop up a large onion and a couple pieces of garlic and sauté that in butter (at least 1/2 stick) in a large fry pan. Drain the kohlrabi and add to the onion/garlic mix. Sauté for about 10 minutes.
Then, sprinkle the mix with flour, turn and sprinkle again. Add salt and pepper. Turn a few times to mix the flour well into the butter. Then slowly add milk or 1/2 + 1/2 (about a cup) and stir it all together slowly, maybe another 10-15 minutes, as it thickens (the flour butter and milk are making a nice sauce). Serve it up!
Simple artery clogging Czech summer kohlrabi dish.
Mobil RoonieRoo
August is our gardening “winter” in that it’s the only month of the year that I can completely empty the garden, recompost and get ready for the fall planting next month. Since it is our prep time that means our bed rebuilding, cleaning up is happening in our delightful heat. I am ready for fall to come to central Texas.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: thanks! Considering I am relying on watering rather than rain — I suspected a chemical problem. I have a bunch of epsom I can use. They are still flowering so I will try it today.
Immanentize
@p.a.: we treat our yard similarly. I was saying yesterday that my lawn crunches when I walk on it this year. I don’t think it will recover.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Just tried again (my last attempt in my sleep deprived state) to find the mix and I think I am getting my plant ailments and cures mixed up. Epsom salts is magnesium sulfate, not calcium sulfate. Not sure how MgSO4 would fix calcium deficiency so just follow the recommendations in the link.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I will check the link. I am hoping the return of Mrs Ozark and the general routine helps turn on the sleep machine…. Thank you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Yum, my heart has it too easy anyway.
maurinsky
We have tomatoes aplenty this year – mostly San Marzanos, which are going to be turned into sauce, but also cherry tomatoes, black zebras and some kind of heirloom variety. Our green beans weren’t too productive, we could only harvest a few beans, enough for maybe 3 servings. After harvesting 6 heads of red romaine lettuce we got rid of that plant – the lettuce was too bitter for my taste so my husband was getting tired of being responsible for eating it. Peppers are starting to come in, we have green, red and scotch bonnets, and we have 4 watermelons going.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: She talks in her sleep (and yells and screams) which makes for entertaining late night/early morning ‘conversations’. She also sleep walks (and sleep falls) which make for heart stopping gymnastic leaps out of bed. I am usually half awake anyway.
debbie
@maurinsky:
This seems like a nice use of watermelon.
scav
Kohlrabi, my family is just of the attack it all summer and eat it fresh as often as possible.
ETA: also half of the bohunk persuasion, although the cooking half was German, hence perhaps the lack of warmed up varients (will have to try that).
Joel
Accidentally posted this in the dead thread:
Thinking of ditching my reel mower. My lawn is actually too small for it to run properly (can’t get enough momentum) and it cannot cut seed heads in late spring/early summer, requiring me to drag out my string trimmer to finish the job.
Home Depot is selling a RYOBI 40V battery mower for $169 and I can pick up a battery pack/charger from ebay for $40-50 more. That’s too good to turn down, right?
satby
My small garden of potted tomatoes have produced a handful of ripe cherry tomatoes and several small green beefsteaks that I hope get bigger before blight takes the plant. The heat caused most of the flowers to drop without setting fruit, and the humidity has been very supportive of wilts and blights even though I sprayed at the first moment I saw it. The farmers markets are overflowing with produce now, so I don’t feel cheated.
My last thing on my list before I turn over my current house keys will be to lift some of my bulbs and perennials to take and transplant at my new house. Next year the garden will be back on a smaller scale but I suspect better than ever: the previous owner had raised beds with cover hoops and an irrigation system!
satby
@Joel: Sounds ok to me!
raven
@Joel: Be careful.
OzarkHillbilly
@Joel: Can you mow your lawn in 20 minutes? Cause if not you’ll be doing it in 20 minute slots of time. A couple friends bought their bat operated trimmers and the batteries will only last that long. I would expect less in a mower. Or you can do like I do with drills and impact drivers: carry lots of extra batteries.
(also, the mower doesn’t come with a charger?)
Lyrebird
@JR in WV: No no kohlrabi is like fresh broccoli stem, sweet and yummy.
Must peel.
Easy hit:
peel and cube kohlrabi
roast in a medium-hot oven with a couple cloves of garlic (smushed with heavy knife and cut a bit) and olive oil,
wait for a little browning on the edges,
add salt,
enjoy!
OzarkHillbilly
Funny Guilty Dogs Compilation NEW I am LMAOROFL.
Gindy51
@Immanentize: You sound like me as my dad was 1st gen Czech and from Moravia to boot! Born in Chicago in the early 30’s. His dad was a butcher (after running booze for the mob) and mom was the boss’s daughter.
The garden was an epic FAIL this year… too wet, too cold, and then too humid and hot.
Kristine
My two-container garden did better than I expected given the spells of intense heat in far NE IL. I just harvested another handful of Black Cherry tomatoes–I chop them in pasta dishes and keep a container by the kitchen sink for snacking. Can’t say enough good things about the basil. Black opal and curly green, with the sharpest, most wonderfullest cinnamon scents, delicious in pasta, salads, on sandwiches. The plants are flowering, but I may cut them back and try to keep them indoors through fall/winter. Quality starter plants from the People’s Republic of Madison Farmers Market. They done good.
As for kohlrabi, grew it once, and received it a few times in CSA shares. Tried slaw, pickling, baking en casserole. Couldn’t acquire the taste. I think they’re cute–they look like little Sputniks–but other than that, not my veg. I will however eat everyone else’s Brussels sprouts.
Joel
@OzarkHillbilly: RYOBI (and black and decker et al.) work by an inverse razor and blades model. 40V batteries are about $150-200 with charger. The tools are cheap. Makes sense when you consider its a pretty simple machine when the engine is taken out of the equation. I have the 18V ONE string trimmer and hedgers and it works fine for my purposes. My lawn is tiny so charge is no problem. Went with a reel because of weight but it just doesn’t cut it for me.
Olivia
My cousins and I grew up eating kohlrabe right out of our Bohemian grandpa’s garden. If there was water handy we washed it first, but mostly we just peeled it with our teeth and used the root for a handle. I never had it cooked until I got adventurous and put it in a stir fry.
OzarkHillbilly
@Joel: Just wanna make sure you are aware of the limitations. You are. My friends weren’t.
jeffreyw
Mmm… turned these cherry tomatoes and herbs into a nice pasta dish yesterday.
MomSense
Gorgeous photos.
Kohlrabi au gratin will rock your world. You can make them with potatoes if you like. If you are a meat eater, you can add ham or bacon. It’s delicious.
I’ve also roasted them like oven baked French fries and dipped them in garlic aioli. I tried corn and kohlrabi fritters which were tasty but labor intensive.
ETA should have been carrot and kohlrabi fritters. Guess my phone prefers corn.
Princess
Another Czech (of the Jewish variant) reporting in with a grandfather who loved kohlrabi so much, he built a garden just to grow it.
I like it in a slaw with cabbage with dill and dried cherries and dressing of lemon zest and lemon juice and oil in a 3:1 ratio.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Princess:
Three parts lemon juice to one part oil? Surely that’s reversed?
SIA
Beautiful photos! So painterly.
I bought some kale but have no idea what to do with it. Cook it like greens or use it in a salad?
Marvel
All: Thanks for the kohlrabi recipes!
gogol's wife
@Gindy51:
Hey, Moravians unite! (Actually I’m Slovak, but on the Moravian border.)
gogol's wife
@Gindy51:
But my dad was more into head cheese and blood sausage than kohlrabi.
jeffreyw
@SIA: Not a salad green in my view, needs some cooking.
satby
@SIA: baby kale or the bigger leaves? I eat the baby kale in salads, but love the mature stuff cooked and used like you would spinach, though the taste isn’t the same. Lightly wilted in a bit of butter with a dash of pepper is easy and delicious.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@SIA: I’d cook it; it’s pretty fibrous.
SIA
@jeffreyw: Now that’s one of your recipes I think I can actually make! :)
@satby: @a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): Cooking it is. Thanks!
laura
Our tiny garden’s yield so far is Cherokee matoes sweet and Thai basil, white eggplants with beautiful streaks in purple tones sunflowers and monster zucchini.
But there’s a new planter box 50 feet by 5 wide! Full of new store bought dirt with nary a weed. It runs and Eastside fence the length of the yard so good full early sun and shade on the back end in the afternoon.
We’ll be planting it as both an attractors and food box so I’m planning for a three season arc of bloom for butterflies,bees and birds plus a Meyer lemon, a pomegranate salad, herb and veg of the seasonal variety.
But first, masses of marigolds, coriopsis and giant red amaranth for the Dia de los Muertos shindig when the nub end of October greets November.
I’m off the farmers where the amaranth starters are going 2 for a buck.
I made note last Sunday as we bought the fruits and veg for my Mother’s funeral festivities.
Today’s my day for digging. And this blog and it’s food/garden/dog program-related activities has been good for the soul.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I have been making watermelon popsicles. Very yummy and refreshing!
WaterGirl
Marvel, your photos are like art! So jealous of your garden and your photo skills, but in a good way, not the creepy hateful way.
My garden is doing okay, though it is so faded from where it was 4-6 weeks ago. Alas, fall is coming and this is what happens. At least I can look forward to the pink hair grass I got last year – so happy and colorful when everything else looks so tired and faded when it turns cold.
Just discovered that I have grubs in my lawn. Can’t decide whether “ick” or “ugh” is the best way to describe my feelings about that. I have two dogs so I can’t use anything toxic even if I wanted to. Any suggestions? The whole “catch them with beer” is out because they really creep me out. Besides, my pup would think, hey, second breakfast!
Felonius Monk
@gogol’s wife:
These were favorites of my father also. His parents and older brother emigrated from Moravia/Bohemia around 1903.
evodevo
Fried green tomatoes !!11!!!!! Breaded with Ky Kernel flour !!! Mmmmmmmmm – so much for healthy eating LOL
raven
Walter up.
SIA
@WaterGirl: Neem oil or milky spore…can’t remember how to do links…see if this works…
ETA Hurrah!
WaterGirl
@SIA: Thank you! Off to read it now. I WISH they didn’t put huge photos of these disgusting creatures at the top of every article that tells how to get rid of them. :-)
P.S. Oh, yay! Just tried the “View -> Show Reader” menu item, and all the photos are gone!
Barb2
A musical post as well!
Hot, Hot, Hot by Arrow of Montserrat (Caribbean Island). Part of the lyrics – this song is long. Really long.
Lyrics
Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole
Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole
Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot
Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot
BRASS SOLO
Me mind on fire,
Me soul on fire
Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot!
All da people,
All around me
Feelin Hot Hot Hot!
A-what to do on a night like this
Is it sweet? I can’t resist.
We need a party sound,
A fun-da-mental charm
So we can..
Rhum-boom-boom-boom
Yeah ba-
Rhum-boom-boom-boom
Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole
Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole
Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot!
Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot!
Shell
Here in Jersey, we’ve had some rain from passing thunderstorms, but I can’t remember the last rainy day. Everything is crisping up.
The gray adder
Up here in upstate New York (43N 75W, or thereabouts), our volunteer tomatoes are giving us more cherry tomatoes than we can eat, while a volunteer Brandywine produced two two pound monsters. Mind you all who live further south, we don’t even plant tomatoes up here until June.
gogol's wife
@Felonius Monk:
Ha — my father came in 1910, on the Princess Alice.
a different chris
>(Kohlrabi????? What the heck do you DO with it?????)
If you’re my wife you weed-wack it, and also the tomatillos. Sigh.
CatHairEverywhere
We have a rechargeable battery-operated lawn mower, and the charge holds for far longer than 20 minutes. We can mow both the front and back lawns, then let the mower sit for a week and do it again without an additional charge. It cuts our Bermuda very well. Our mower is from Lowe’s, and was not overly expensive. I wish we had waited to buy it, as our county was offering them free as a trade-in for a gas mower in order to help with the air quality around here.
CatHairEverywhere
Also, kohlrabi is an early spring veg here. I love it raw- peeled and sliced. I usually throw it into a bowl with snap peas, jicama, and whatever else is fresh that time of year. I think it tastes like broccoli with the crunch of jicama. The cooked recipes sound delicious- I will have to try them this year!
Gelfling 545
I only had vegetable plants in pots this year and ther have done surisingly well in spite of about 6 weeks with no rain. The rain finally atarted to return last week & we’ve had a couple of good drenches. planted only 2 tomatoes:one jetstar & one unidentified cherry & both have done well & given me enough yield for fresh use. I also have masses of cayenne peppers to dry for cooking. Leaf lettuces are on a break right now but I have seedlings nurtured in air conditioned comfort ready for when the weather cools a bit. I use dinosaur kale as accent plants in my flower pots and have been able to harvest a handful of leaves here and there. Just enough to add to whatever is cooking. Pretty satisfactory considering the lack of rainfall.
Eric U.
@OzarkHillbilly: last year I learned about fungicide but didn’t realize the underlying cause was blossom end rot. maybe next year we’ll have tomatoes. Not exactly dedicated gardeners here in the Unterhausen household
SIA
@WaterGirl: Agree. I saw some unspeakable bugs in my kitchen and when reading about how to get rid of them suddenly there are all these pictures of them in my face! Gah!
joel hanes
kohlrabi are best eaten raw
peel ’em, slice into sticks
salt lightly
munch
rikyrah
hat tip – POU
The GOP’s Stealth War Against Voters
The Crosscheck program is a response to the imaginary menace of mass voter fraud.
By Greg Palast 4 days ago
When Donald Trump claimed, “the election’s going to be rigged,” he wasn’t entirely wrong. But the threat was not, as Trump warned, from Americans committing the crime of “voting many, many times.” What’s far more likely to undermine democracy in November is the culmination of a decade-long Republican effort to disenfranchise voters under the guise of battling voter fraud. The latest tool: Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls.
The data is processed through a system called the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, which is being promoted by a powerful Republican operative, and its lists of potential duplicate voters are kept confidential. But Rolling Stone obtained a portion of the list and the names of 1 million targeted voters. According to our analysis, the Crosscheck list disproportionately threatens solid Democratic constituencies: young, black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters – with some of the biggest possible purges underway in Ohio and North Carolina, two crucial swing states with tight Senate races.
Pogonip
@Joel: What is RYOBI?
Pogonip
@SIA: There seems to be some kind of Internet rule: any article having anything, however remotely, to do with cockroaches must have at least one close-up full-color picture, the more disgusting the better.
Gvg
@Pogonip: RYOBI is a brand like craftsman or Black and Decker. It’s just the company who makes that tool. They do a lot of power garden tools and things like drills and sanders. Seem to be one of the leaders in battery cordless stuff.
Peter
My favorite kohlrabi dish is a fermented sauerkraut. I run chunks of it through the shredding wheel on my food processor, then toss it with some salt until it starts to give up a lot of liquid. Then I pack it into half-gallon jars, using a half-pint jar full of water as a weight to hold all the solids below the liquid so mold doesn’t grow on top. Then the jars sit in the basement for a few weeks; you can transfer them to the fridge at a certain point to slow the fermentation down but it’s not required as long as they’re at basement temp (55-60˚). We’re still eating a jar from last November; it’s nice and sour and goes with everything.