Tag Archives: pesto

Today’s Double Harvest Basket 6/20 & 6/26

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

2017 Garlic Harvest in a zone 6, southeast Missouri garden. The bulbs are ready to lift mid to late June every year. A week later, the garlic harvest has doubled.

Garlic 6/20

Freshly dug garlic needs to dry and cure before storage. The scapes go into white wine vinegar.

Perhaps the smallest garlic harvest I’ve had in years. There is one more little late patch to harvest, but this is the bulk of the 2017 garlic crop.

Pickled garlic mellows to a very mild flavor with time.

The garlic heads are smaller this year. After the garlic cries on the covered porch for a couple of days, I braid the bigger heads. The rest is roasted or pickled.

While cloves of garlic are bound for jars of kosher dills, Small cloves of pickled garlic are ideal for antipasta plates and veggie/pickles dishes.

More Garlic 6/26

Late harvest garlic was much bigger. This harvest weighed about 50% more

There are now 50 to 60 good-sized heads, That’s about a years worth because we use about a head every week of the year. Sometimes less, sometimes more, plus a lot goes into sauces, pickles, and roasted then frozen.

1 week later we’ve doubled the garlic harvest.

Garlic Scapes

Garlic scapes are the spring bonus for growing your own garlic.

The first garlic related harvest of the season is clipping the scapes, or flower heads, from the plants.

Garlic scapes were plentiful because I planted mostly hard neck garlic. One week, I found garlic scapes at the farmers market for $2 a bunch. One of my favorite seasonal meals garlic scape pesto.

I add a few scapes into a bottle of good white wine vinegar. By this winter, it will become a premium herb vinegar. It’s mellowed garlic vinegar is almost sweet.

Sexy Food

Make pesto using garlic scapes instead of, or in addition to, basil. Serve with Pappardelle, broad, flat pasta noodles, similar to wide fettuccine. (The name derives from the verb “pappare”, to gobble up.) This really is OMG food.

If I was served a dish like fresh garlic scape pesto over homemade Pappardelle, it would be unforgettable gold star dish. It’s adult rated food. Once you put it in your mouth, you will know how an Italian dish can be 4 Star And x rated at the same time.

To Make Pesto: Puree the garlic scapes, sunflower seeds, Parmesan, salt, and pepper in a food processor until finely chopped. With the motor running, drizzle the olive oil through the opening.

How to Grow and Harvest Organic Garlic

Gently lift garlic and move to the shade.

Growing your own garlic is easy and takes very little space.

Your also get to select the type of garlic you grow, very mild or hot and pungent.

Save your biggest and best garlic head to replant in the fall. Never buy garlic again.

These smaller heads of garlic are roasted. Then, the softened bulbs squeezed into teaspoonful portions and frozen for later use.

Mild, roasted garlic is not over powering or hot to the taste. It easily blends into any recipe. Perfect for pasta sauces or garlic toast. Try it. You will never be with out fresh, local garlic.

I purchased my garlic from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. They have a variety of hard and soft neck garlic. While I keep the best variety that I grow, It’s fun to try other types of garlic. I tend select the milder varieties and long keepers.

This fall, plant a variety of garlic. That imported no-name variety purchased at the grocery store will be your last choice.

Save

Green Beans, bugs and bunnies

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

Garden Report 2012

Green Beans are a summer favorite I seldom eat in winter. Because as you know, everything tastes better home grown and garden fresh.

This recipe is made from last summers dried tomatoes and pesto. This summers green beans and onions. photo: PBH

Green Beans

Green beans are grown from Renee’s Garden seed. I pulled the onions from my garden the last week of June. At first the beans were being eaten up by bugs and bunnies.

The bunnies came and went. Bigger gardens next door or a neighborhood full of cats and dogs sent the bunnies on their way. Repeated Safer’s Soap sprays slowed down the bugs.

I’m growing “Tricolor Bush” and “Tricolor Pole”. Why bush and pole? because the pole beans are ready about a week after the bush beans. I’ll keep replanting beans and hopefully get another crop or two here in Missouri.

We love pickled green beans. These long straight beans are meant to be stuffed into tall skinny jars and pickled. They are refrigerator pickles, meant to be eaten fresh out of the jar. My crisp pickled beans are not cooked by the long process of canning.

Maybe we will have enough to freeze a few of these three colors of long straight green beans. The multi colored beans are beautiful in winter time vegetable soup.

Earlier this summer I grew a great crop of French, “Rolande” bush beans. Extra-slim,

“Roland” is a “haricot vert” of filet bean. Pick them and cook them. These straight, skinny beans are tender and need very little cooking.

long and deep green filet or “haricot vert” snap beans. These are a long, skinny French bean that does very well in my zone 6A home garden.

They grew in a square 4′ x 4′ garden. Every week for four weeks I planted another quarter of the garden. It kept us in fresh beans and a bit more to share with Neighbor Patty.

They are extra-crispy, making it possible for Jules and I to come to a middle ground in the kitchen. One of us likes Southern style “cooked to death” green beans and the other likes the California style “crispy and full of vitamins” version.

Green Beans are meant for sucession planting. Planting one patch and a little later planting a few more beans will stretch out fresh green bean season spring to fall. The best way is to plant a few beans, or part of a row every week.

When the first plants are finished producing beans, cut them down, mow them or, snip off the plants. Replant that spot again with more green beans. If you want to freeze or can a lot of beans at once, this method is not for you.

If I have a few too many green beans, I can share them with the neighbor. Or, it is quick to blanch and freeze a quart size plastic zipper lock bag of green beans. Next, I’ll plant cow peas.

Onions

Had to do a little research on how to harvest and store onions because I’ve never had much luck growing them before. It was not a great crop. But the variety of onions were so much more successful than ever before.

Red onions are still in the ground. As are the leeks and shallots. Garlic was lifted mid June.

‘Gigante Italian’ Parsley, Not Just Garnish

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Patsy Bell | Leave a comment

by Patsy Bell Hobson

Tags: Giveaway, Parsley, Italian Parsley, Preservation Tips, Harvest Tips

I’ve never lived where parsley grew as a biennial. Parsley has always been an annual in my garden. Until last summer.

Fresh parsley grows early spring until late fall

Instead of it growing about a foot tall, it grew to about three feet. Then, this overachiever bloomed. That’s when its family tree became apparent.

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) is a member of the carrot family. When it blooms, the family resemblance to its cousin, Queen Ann’s Lace (Daucus carota), is striking.

This year, volunteer parsley have appeared where the giant grew and self-seeded last summer. The self-seeded plants came weeks ahead of the seeds I sowed. If you are content to let the parsley grow where ever it wants, you won’t have to disturb the fussy tap-root.

Allow parsley to self seed for an earlier harvest.

Chop parsley and combine with room temp butter. Photo by Patsy Bell Hobson

How To Preserve Parsley

• Wash and chop the leaves. Fill an ice cube tray with the leaves. Add water (or vegetable broth) to fill the cups of a plastic ice-cube tray. Place in freezer until the cubes are frozen. Pop the cubes out and store in an airtight container in your freezer. Thaw when needed by dropping a cube into soup or sauce.

• You can make a parsley pesto in the same way you make your favorite version of basil pesto. Dry parsley if you must, but its color is dull and the flavor is similar to notebook paper.

• Parsley butter will also preserve the color and flavor better than drying and freezes well. Read Herbal Butters and Oils: Garden Herb Butter to learn more.

Remove the stems in recipes calling for fresh parsley.

I always plant and grow twice as much parley as I need because parsley is a wonderful choice for attracting black swallowtail butterflies. Curley and flat-leaf parsley have a very high vitamin C content. It also contains vitamin A, B1, B2, calcium, iron, and anti-inflammatory flavonoids.

Other herbs in a butterfly garden should include dill and fennel.

Parsley, dill and fennel are taking over my Zone 6 garden. If you let these herbs self-seed they will come up earlier and hardier than the seeds you sow this spring. If you are not obsessed with growing plants in straight lines or rows, the self-sown plants are a bargain. They don’t all come up at once, which will extend your harvest season.

Seed Packet Giveaway!

Flat leaf parsley photo by Renees Garden

My “Free Seed Packet” giveaways are attracting readers to this Herb Companion Blog and, the seed companies are very generous. I love introducing you to some of my favorite seed sources. In addition to the volunteer parsley, I am growing Italian ‘Gigante’ parsley from Renee’s Garden.

There are a lot of new herb gardeners out there. So, when I mention seed sources, they consistently deliver the products they advertise on time with a generous seed count. Their seeds thrive in my garden. Renee’s Garden has volunteered three packets of Italian ‘Gigante’ parsley to give away. It is not too late to plant seed. Just be mindful of the moisture and never let the soil or seedlings dry out.