Today’s Harvest Basket 6/18/2014

Posted on June 19, 2014 by | Leave a comment

June 18, 2014

Parsley, mint, onion, ity bitty carrot.

Fresh parsley + mint make the best tabouleh.

Fresh parsley + mint make the best tabouleh.

I always grow more parsley than we can eat. It is because of the rule of three. Grow one for me, one for others, one for the wildlife. Tabouleh is made with ingredients from my garden plus bulgar, a squeeze of fresh lemon and a bit of olive oil.

When tomatoes are producing, stuffed tomatoes are a good lunch.

When tomatoes are producing heavily, stuffed tomatoes are a good lunch.

Tabouleh will have a lot of parsley and mint in tonight’s dish. Next week when we have TONS of cucumber, the recipe will be heavy on cucumbers. Finally, when the tomatoes are the star of the garden, there will be a lot more tomato in the recipe.

About that carrot, it was harvested because I was thinning the carrots to encourage  them to grow straight and tall. When we have enough for carrot cake, I’ll share my recipe. But, it looks like it could be awhile before we have fresh carrot cake.

Take a jar of cool water to the garden. Plung herbs and leafy greens in cool water to prevent wilting.

 

This mint is called chocolate mint. It tastes nothing like chocolate. The stem is chocolate colored.

It is one of my favorite  mints because it has a pure mint flavor. It is a very bright, clean taste.

I keep it from growing out of control by using it at least once a week, clipping a generous portion to put in sun tea.

I buy mint from Richters Herbs.

Richters has a huge selection of herbs and a stunning variety of mints.

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GBBD 6/15/14

Posted on June 17, 2014 by | Leave a comment

June Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

I love July. Everything is green and growing. The bugs and drought haven’t gotten to everything yet.

This is ‘Going Bananas’ Daylily is a Hemerocallis from Proven Winners crowded into a patch of Black Eyed Susan . Others see how beautiful they are. I see more work. These daylilies already need to be thinned out.

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Going Bananas daylily and Black-eyed Susan “Chocolate Orange”

Black-eyed Susan “Chocolate Orange” is a dark chocolate color outlined by bright orange. Strong stems and showy long-lasting flowers are perfect for cutting.

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‘Going Bananas’ Daylily Hemerocallis hybrid

It is a lovely shade of yellow. There are three different yellow daylilies blooming in the garden now.

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Miss Mary Mary Is blooming single blooms now. Next it will be double blooms on the same plant.

 

 

Black-Eyed Stella an old favorite for good reason.

Black-Eyed Stella an old favorite for good reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black-Eyed Stella

Introduced in 1994 at Powell Gardens, Kansas City’s Botanical Garden. East of the city on U.S. Highway 50 in Kingsville, MO 64061

To introduce this flower to the public, they were giving away Black Eyed Stellas. We stood in line, a long, long line, for a long, long time to get that little dayllily.

Finally at the front of the line, I was handed a scrawny bare root plant. I figured it would die before I could get home and plant it.

It thrived and multiplied and multiplied. It wasn’t long before there was a 3-foot wide border along the back of the house. Plus, for 6 years, I potted up 25 clumps to sell for the garden club every spring.

20 award-winning daylilies have been selected for the coveted All-American title for their scientifically proven and superior performance nationwide by the All-American Daylily Selection Council (AADSC).

The neighborhood mailbox spot is a bit of a gathering place

The neighborhood mailbox spot is a bit of a gathering place.

“We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.” ~ Elizabeth Lawrence.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. What’s blooming in your garden? Share with other garden bloggers on the 15th of each month. Leave a link in Mr. Linky and the comments of May Dreams Gardens.

Patriotic Petunias, red, white and blue flowers will only live as long as I remember to water them.

Patriotic Petunias, red, white and blue flowers will only live as long as I remember to water them.

 

 

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Today’s Harvest Basket 6/14/14

Posted on June 15, 2014 by | Leave a comment

June 14, 2014

Bucket of lettuce, green onions, hot pepper

Today's Harvest Basket 6:14:14

Picked the most of the garden lettuce today, and thinned more green onions.

 

Organic, French Red Leaf lettuce, “Redina”* Big beautiful rosettes of ruffled red leaves  Tasty, eye-catching and disease-resistant French lettuce is lasting a couple of weeks longer than most.

Heirloom leaf lettuce “Garden Ferns,”* Sweet flavored, long lance shaped leaves with juicy texture. Perfect shape to mix with other lettuces in mixed spring greens.

These tender leaf lettuces are best with the lightest of dressings. Choose fresh lemon juice or herb vinegar to combine with olive oil.

Dressing: 2 parts lemon juice (or herb vinegar) and 1 part olive oil.

Spring greens mixed with onions and radishes.

Spring greens mixed with onions and radishes.

 

Make it your own –

Acid – Choose fresh squeezed lemon juice, or white wine vinegar. Make this you secret recipe with a herb flavored vinegar, like chives or tarragon vinegar. Try rice wine vinegar.

Oil – Olive oil is the classic choice. Add a couple of drops of sesame. This oil must be stored in the refrigerator. Using bacon drippings will make a wilted lettuce or a hot bacon dressing.

 

 

 

 

Bring a bucket of cold water to the garden.

Bring a bucket of cold water to the garden.

 

Cool Idea: Bring a bucket of iced water to the garden when you pick lettuces. Warm days tend to wilt lettuce, spinach, chard.

As the weather heats up, lettuces will bolt, or go to seed.

Complete the circle: If your lettuce is an heirloom, let some of the lettuce go to seed. Collect a few seed and plant them next spring.

 

 

* “Redina” and  “Garden Ferns,” lettuces are exclusive to Renee’s Garden

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Today’s Harvest Basket 6/12/14

Posted on June 13, 2014 by | Leave a comment

June 12, 2014

Cabbage, lettuces, onions

We are still getting lots of rain and spring temperatures.

We are still getting lots of rain and spring temperatures. Photo by PBH

It is a joy to still have a variety of lettuces and beautiful salads from the garden. I just step out the kitchen door, and across the drive to my kitchen garden.

We call the vegetable garden the circle garden because it is the interior of a circle drive. The space was originally full of rocks and trash. With a lot of time and work, the garden had become very productive. You can find plenty of earthworms in each of the raised beds.

Bug proof cabbage

I planted four little cabbage plant stars in four different places in the garden this spring. My hope was to raise a head or two of cabbage before the worms and slugs moved in. Because I don’t spray, cabbages and broccoli are always a disappointment.

But this year, one of the cabbages just seemed to be bug proof. It amazed me so that I took a photo of the big uneaten cabbage leaves.

Big uneaten cabbage leaves.

Big uneaten cabbage leaves. photo PBH

The cabbage in Today’s Harvest Basket will become cole slaw. I make it with a vinegar dressing and not the one with mayonnaise.

Dressing: whisk together

  • 1/4 cup white wine herb vinegar
  • 2 pkts stevia (or 2 Tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoons salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon each, celery seeds, ground black pepper

Shred veggies, toss in large bowl with dressing.

  • 3 green onions, thinly sliced
  • 1 small head of cabbage, finely sliced.
  • 1 carrot, grated

If you have fresh cilantro or dill and parsley, chop and toss in a few fresh herbs

Make it your own by adding shredded rainbow carrots, bell pepper, red pepper flakes

 

 Lettuces

“Garden Ferns” leaf lettuce is juicy and still producing. This tender lance shaped leaf lettuce is an excellent addition to any salad.

“Redina” organic, French Red Leaf lettuce.  Very large rosettes of frilled & ruffled deep red leaves.

I get these beautiful leaf lettuce seeds at Renee’s Garden.

 

 

 

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Today’s Harvest Basket 6/4/14

Posted on June 5, 2014 by | Leave a comment

June 4, 2014

Loaded with kale. It was just thinned. There's plenty more to come.

Picked more fresh kale and more to come. Photo Patsy Bell Hobson

Green onions, snow peas, kale, radish, spinach. I also took a small bucket of cold water to the garden along with the harvest basket. As I cut parsley, it went directly into the bucket along with Flashy Trout Back lettuce. The tender young leaf lettuce and the last of the garden peas seem to be the baby bunny rabbit’s favorites as well.

It won’t be long before it’s time to pull the onions and garlic. The recent rains has been a big help. Everything is growing fast.

The snow peas will be a stir fry with the last of the asparagus and shrimp.

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Wilted Lettuce

Posted on June 5, 2014 by | 1 comment

Get out your biggest bowl.

Spring greens mixed with onions and radishes.

Spring greens mixed with onions and radishes.

Wilted Lettuce. When Grandma asked me what I wanted for supper, I said wilted lettuce.
“You and Rex,” she said. “I think he could eat a dish pan of wilted lettuce.”
Grandpa Rex and I loved wilted lettuce.

Not a spring lettuce garden goes by without several servings of wilted lettuce on the menu.

In restaurants the closest you will get to this dish is “Spinach salad with hot bacon dressing.”

To make Wilted Lettuce and the get the recipe go to:

How to make wilted lettuce

Have you tried Flashy Trout Back lettuce?

Mature lettuce has burgundy colored speckles.

Mature lettuce has burgundy colored speckles.

It is very popular now. If it is too late to plant lettuce, order seed for a fall crop.

‘Flashy Trout Back’ is a romaine lettuce, fully mature at 55 days. It is crisp, crunchy and spattered with dark wine colored splashes.

Young Flashy Trout Back leaves are lighter colored and especially popular with thelocal baby rabbits.

Young Flashy Trout Back is especially popular with the local baby rabbits.

You can harvest baby greens, which are much lighter colors.

 

 

 

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Today’s Harvest Basket 5/31/2014

Posted on June 4, 2014 by | Leave a comment

We have lots of radishes and green onions that I picked yesterday. So today’s harvest was half a dozen types of lettuce and some wild Russian Kale.

I pulled up all the Pak Choi today. It had gone to seed. Spring is over in the garden. Let the summer begin!

Todays Harvest Basket 5:31:2014

A variety of lettuces make the best salad.

Think this is a lot of lettuce? Not me. The season for homegrown leaf lettuce is much too short for me to tire of it. Same thing with Asparagus. The season is too short.  Too short.

I got my seed from

Renee’s Garden

Nichols Garden Nursery

 

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Todays Harvest Basket 6/1/ 2014

Posted on June 3, 2014 by | Leave a comment

June 1, 2014

Today's Harvest Basket 6/1/14 Picked lots of Russian Kale "Wild Garden Frills" (seed from Renee's Garden). Despite being wild, it's also quite mild. Tore up some small leaves to add to our salad tonight. Will use the rest in a green rice dish. Picked a few baby butter head lettuces and lots of leaf lettuces like Flashy Trout Back, Oakleaf, Garden Ferns. There are onions and radishes picked yesterday, so it's wilted lettuce on tonights menu.

Today’s Harvest Basket 6/1/14 Picked a few baby butter head lettuces and lots of leaf lettuces like Flashy Trout Back, Oakleaf, Garden Ferns.
It’s wilted lettuce on tonight’s menu. Patsy Bell Hobson.

Picked lots of Russian Kale “Wild Garden Frills” (seed from Renee’s Garden). Despite being wild, it’s also quite mild. Tore up some small leaves to add to our salad tonight. Will use the rest in a green rice dish.

Picked a few baby butter head lettuces and lots of leaf lettuces like Flashy Trout Back, Oakleaf, Garden Ferns.

There are onions and radishes picked yesterday, so it’s wilted lettuce on tonight’s menu.

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Every inch of soil is productive. In the blocks that frame this raised bed are lettuces which will be harvested soon so the onions will have space to bulb. Patsy Bell Hobson

It’s just too bad that we can’t have home-grown lettuce and tomatoes at the same time. Usually lettuce comes to an end about the time cherry tomatoes start coming on.

A broken transplant or starter tomato might have been a disaster.

A broken transplant or starter tomato might have been a disaster.

 

Tomato plants want to live.

All you need to do is stick the broken stem in the ground and plant the rooted base.

Don’t forget to keep these starts well watered and protected from the hottest sun until till they are well rooted and starting to branch.

It will be the same as planting two tomato plants. Meaning double the tomatoes as planned.

This tomato is Gold Medal, a big old heirloom producing 1/2 to 1 pound size yellow globes with red streaking.

I love Gold Medal tomatoes, they are meaty slicers that are beautiful on a plate of  Caprese salad (Italian: Insalata Caprese, meaning “Salad of Capri”)

The salad has no recipe, just combine basil, tomato and mozzarella. drizzle a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.

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First Harvest Basket of the season 2014

Posted on June 2, 2014 by | Leave a comment

 Todays Harvest Basket

First Harvest Basket of 2014. Pak Choi, onions, radishes, lettuces. Plus, there is a pint or so of strawberries we’ve been getting every day this week, Ozarks Beauty. We are also finishing up Asparagus season this week.

Salad greens, radishes, green onion, Pak Choi

Salad greens, radishes, green onion, Pak Choi Photo: Patsy Bell Hobson

One interesting thing, is that there are a few radish left, hidden in the lettuces. They are big and only as hot as the smaller more traditional radish. Not fiery hot or pithy. They are pink and red and a few are white.

Some of these big radish have gone to seed. The flowers a small and dainty on tall wispy stems. I hope to save some seed to plant next spring.

 

 

 

 

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Double Take™ ‘Scarlet Storm’ Quince

Posted on May 18, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Look for this plant

Double Take™ ‘Scarlet Storm’ Quince Chaenomeles speciosa

This is the second spring for this shrub in my garden. I prune it right after it blooms.

Long lasting late spring blooms.

Long lasting late spring blooms. Photo: Patsy Bell Hobson

The first year you plant a shrub, there’s not much to say about it. This is the second spring the Scarlet Storm has bloomed in my yard. In coming years, I expect this Quince to be  even more beautiful. It can get up to 4 feet tall and wide.

There is good planting advice on the Hub Page link: Double Take™ ‘Scarlet Storm’ Quince Chaenomeles speciosa

If you go to the expense of buying a perennial shrub, dedicate some time to getting it off to a good start. Plant it properly and keep it well watered. Once your shrub is well established, it requires very little attention.

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Type in your zip code at the Proven Winners site to find out where you can get it locally.

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