The Last Zucchini

I was doing some cellar maintenance earlier today. I noticed some mold on the stem end of the last zucchini - left to grow huge last summer, picked just before frost, and then stored. Usually they'll only hold until early January, so I'd been watching this last one - wondering how long it would keep. It looked like now its time was about up, so I brought it inside.

The rind had turned orange, and was almost as hard to cut as that of a winter squash. Inside, the flesh too had turned orange, and had gotten quite fibrous close to the seed cavity. I saved some of the seeds but since I also grow Delicata squash, another C. pepo variety, the two most-likely cross-pollinated. I might plant a few just to see what I get, depending on how much space I have out in the garden this summer.

Stored zucchini aren't cooked the same as summer-fresh ones, but they are good in baked goods. After scraping out the seed cavity and trimming off the hard peel, I had a nice bit of usable flesh (and a bucketful of scraps, which made for a very happy bunch of chickens). Shredded on the large holes of a box grater, I ended up with three tightly-packed cupfuls. One cup, and raisins, made a batch of oat bran muffins (there were twelve, before Aries wandered through). And the other two cups made a big panful of cake-like zucchini brownies (that piece is mine). Also in the photo above, a few more things up from the cellar today: the last of the fresh bell peppers, a bit shriveled with a bit of mold starting on the stems (still plenty more chopped pieces in the freezer though), some stored paste tomatoes (paste, or roma-type, tomatoes store much better than round ones - nowhere near the taste of summer ones, but still better than most supermarket ones), and apples (plenty of those yet, and still in fine shape). The Delicata squash I store inside the house.

Short-Term Stored Foods at Year-End

Barely a week past the solstice, but the chickens can tell the days are already getting longer - two eggs yesterday, another one today. We last got eggs in mid-November. I had to buy eggs to make pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, and another couple dozen since. But the girls are looking all new and fluffy-feathered once again, and coming back into production. Hooray!

I used the last of my stored eggplants when I made lasagne a couple of days ago. The stored zucchini are still holding very nicely. I cut, peeled and de-seeded, then shredded two-thirds of one - half going into the lasagne, and made zucchini brownies today with the other half. The shredded storage zuke was a bit drier than summertime ones, so I added a splash of milk to the recipe.

I still have a few Asian pears left in storage - probably enough for 2-3 more batches of muffins. Fresh tomatoes are still looking ok in the cellar, but the temps down there have now dropped to where they've pretty-much lost their flavor. They're still better than buying supermarket tomatoes, though. The last of the fresh bell peppers stored down there are getting rather wrinkly - but roasting them out on the grill and peeling them solves that problem.

The Walla Walla onions just barely made it through last fall's canning season, but they were so big it made processing easy. I still have some white Ringmasters left in storage. But maybe every third one of those has started to get soft in the center, so I'm watching those closely and using them up quickly now. The Red Zeppelins didn't get very big, but they're still storing nicely. And I haven't even started on the Copras. Last Spring's onion combination order has worked out very well.

I cut the last of the chard, kales, and broccoli a few weeks ago, before our nighttime temps dropped into single digits. Washed, dried, wrapped in dish towels, then bagged, they're stored in the refrigerator and still look as fresh as when I picked them. It's nice having some fresh greens to add to winter recipes. I left the plants out in the garden but everything, other than the leeks, is looking pretty shriveled out there now.

So, going into the new year, we'll finally be eating the traditional storage foods - apples, carrots, winter squashes, and cabbages (didn't get a potato or beet crop this year), fermented stuff (sauerkraut and pickles), and our dehydrated, frozen, and home-canned fruits and veggies. Life is good.

Curing Onions

I'd pulled the soaker hoses off the rest of the onions a few weeks ago, and bent down those tops still upright. After a couple of weeks of drying and dying, I used a garden fork to loosen the soil, then my hands to scoop up the bulbs. I then wheeled them into the shade up by the house to cure.

Onions need to be cured for storage. Set out in a single layer in a warm and airy spot, the roots die, the neck shrinks down, and the outer-most layers dry and toughen up. Properly cured yellow Copra onions, I've found, will successfully store for close to a year - easily until the following July. Of my long-day sampler bunch trials, the Walla Wallas are already harvested and in the kitchen, as they'll only hold for a month. Of the rest of that bunch, the white Ringmasters should store up to 4 months and the Red Zeppelins six to eight. I've liked having some red onions this year. I've been using them in the kitchen throughout the summer. I'm also very interested in seeing how the Ringmasters hold up in storage. They produced some beautiful big bulbs with small necks (necessary for good storage potential), and more importantly are an open-pollinated variety (as opposed to a hybrid). I might replant one or two of those late this fall, to let go to seed next year. Onion self-sufficiency is an eventual goal of mine.

Our weather is gradually sliding towards fall. Days are still quite warm though, and the nights cooler but still nice enough to sleep with the windows open. Last night, I hadn't been asleep long when I awakened to the pitty-pat sound of raindrops. Oh no, if the onions got soaked it would ruin their curing. I got out of bed and grabbed a vinyl tablecloth from the camping gear in the closet. The rain had just started; the tree had kept most of the water off the onions. Quickly tucking the doubled tablecloth around the onions, I went back to bed. When the flash of a full-on booming thunderstorm woke me again a little later, I just smiled and went back to sleep. My onions were safe. The next morning, I uncovered them before the day warmed up. If I'd left them under the waterproof cover, they'd have started to sweat, also threatening the curing process. With a slight chance of thunderstorms this upcoming week, I thought it best to move the onions into the garage. I can open up the doors to let the air move through, and not have to worry about any storms coming though when I'm not at home.

Walla Walla Onion Harvest

I'm very happy with my Walla Walla onion trial this year. The plants, ordered in February, received mid-March, and planted in early April, did very well for me.

According to the Dixondale day-length map, I'm in the middle of the intermediate-day section. I went with the long-day onions because most of those varieties have a longer storage time. The storage potential of the Walla Walla, at approximately one month, is the shortest of those I grew this year. Knowing this, I've been using them fresh out of the garden for the past couple of months. The tops were the first to fall over, so I harvested the rest of the Walla Walla onions a couple of weeks ago.

The Walla Walla were one-third of a long-day sampler bunch, supposed to do ok here if planted early enough. Despite pulling some for fresh use throughout the latter part of the summer, after trimming and curing I ended up with almost 14 pounds of Walla Walla onions. I've been using the smaller and thick-necked ones in daily cooking, and hung the rest in a net bag in the pantry for short-term storage. Even though they have a rather thin wrapper layer, they should keep until the tomatoes and tomatillos are ready to start canning sauce and salsa.

Braiding Garlic for Long-Term Storage

This year's garlic has been harvested, cleaned, and braided. The braid is now hanging in the cutout between kitchen and living room, where the warm and gentle air circulation is perfect for curing the bulbs so they'll keep in my pantry throughout the coming year. This year, from a patch 2.5 x 4 feet, I ended up with a 2.5 foot braid, just short of 5 pounds, of 40 nice-sized garlic bulbs (plus a few more too small or with necks too weak to braid, and a couple of the biggest, nicest ones set aside to plant in October).

For more about the whole process, check out today's post on the SGF Co-op blog. While this braid cures, I'll be using up the twelve bulbs from last year, still in fine shape hanging in the pantry, for summer cooking, canning and pickling. For the two of us, a bulb a week throughout the year is just about right.

My Onion Order

Onions end up in just about everything I cook for dinner, quite often in breakfasts too, and many of my canning recipes. Despite numerous attempts, I've never been able to grow decent onions from seed. They'll sprout but just never have done very well for me, if they survive until the setting-out stage at all. So then I'd end up buying a couple of the little bags of onion sets, the miniature bulbs you plant in the early spring to get bigger bulbs later in the season. Those work good if you mainly want scallions or small onions to use fresh - they usually aren't the storage type. My goal in growing onions is to have enough for all my end-of-season canning, plus more to cure and store until I can start harvesting the next summer's crop. Buying onion plants works best for me.

I lost quite a few of last summer's storage onion plants midsummer, to Bambi, so this year I had to start buying my cooking onions in January. I am digging wintered-over leeks now, and still have plenty of shallots though. And soon, I should be able to harvest some spring onions. My walking onions are starting to sprout anew, and the bunching onions should start coming back before too much longer too. I have some onion seeds that are only a year old, so might try starting my own once more, but taking my past attempts into consideration I'm not counting on them.

Today, I ordered a couple bunches of onion plants for this year's main onion crop. I've tried buying onion plants here in town, but the ones the local greenhouse has each spring don't last in storage. A couple of times in the past, I've asked if they could stock some different, better-storing, varieties. But they've repeatedly refused, saying most people want only fresh-eating onions. I can understand their not wanting to stock something they don't think will sell - I realize I probably live differently than most around here. So I've found myself an onion grower that ships what I want to grow - Dixondale Farms. I'm very pleased with both the varieties available and the condition of the plants I've received from them in the past. They're a bit pricey if you're only going to get one bunch, but the price goes down with each additional bunch and shipping is free. If you only have a small space for onions, maybe see if any of your gardening friends want to go in with you on an order.

According to their planting maps, my home in northern Nevada is on the boundary between the intermediate- and long-day onion types. Long-day onions do best north of here, where the summer daylight hours are longest, but will also do well here if planted early enough. I prepared my "early" garden bed last fall, setting out garlic and shallots then, scattering a few spinach and arugula seeds then too. The rest of that bed is just waiting for my earliest sowing of peas, lettuces, and the onions. My onion plants are scheduled to arrive in mid-March. That sounds good to me - folklore says to plant your peas on St Patrick's Day, so I'm hoping the weather will cooperate enough to let me get that whole bed planted then.

They package about 60 onion plants in a bunch; I ordered two bunches. I like yellow Copra onions. I know they grow well here, and easily hold in storage until the following July. So I ordered one bunch of them. Then, since I love experimenting too, I'm trying something new. They have a Long-Day Sampler bunch, a combination of yellow Walla Walla, for eating fresh in the summer plus some fall canning, white Ringmaster for canning and early winter cooking, and Red Zeppelin, a red variety that is supposed to store 6-8 months. If all do well, that should be enough.

First New Life in the Garden

A couple of warm days, after weeks of snow and way-below freezing temps, and the snow has melted. Of course, seasonal temperatures are forecast to return later today, but in the meantime I got the chance to check on the garden.

No sign of the fall-planted garlic or shallots yet. But, looking closely, I find the spinach and arugula have germinated. Broadcast last fall, watered in by the melting snow, there won't be much growth to be seen just yet. But they can take the freezing weather yet to come, and their roots will start reaching down deep. Then, as the days get longer and warmer, they'll have a good foundation to start putting on top growth. I've found sowing in fall the best way to get a good harvest from these two quick-to-bolt greens. And that harvest comes when I really start craving something green and fresh; when I'm getting tired of stored cabbages and roots.

The leeks too, are perking up and starting to fill out. Young plants divided and set out last summer sent up seed stalks. I broke the seed stalks off, and left the plants in place in the fall. Now, with the snow melt, they've started growing again. I'll leave them to bulk up for the next couple of months, harvesting them for fresh use usually in March and earliest April. Dormant season gardening is soooo easy.

I like experimenting with storing food too. Right now we're snacking on fresh chocolate zucchini bread. I made a three-loaf batch yesterday from a monster zucchini stored in the cellar. The skin was a bit tough, so I skimmed that off with the veggie peeler, and scooped out most of the seeds with a spoon. One-third of the zuke we had as a dinner vegetable, sauteed in olive oil with onions and garlic; the rest shredded for the bread recipe. And there's still one more left in the cellar, looking good.

Shopping the Cellar

I was out of carrots in the house, and wanted some for the black-eyed peas this afternoon. Time for a trip down to the cellar. We got about 4" of snow this morning, but I'd shoveled my paths and cleared off the cellar door earlier. So I grabbed my basket and headed outside for my weekly "cellar shopping trip".

Let's see - I'm out of apples too, so pile in a few of them. Aries will like it if I bring up some beer - pilsner or dark? The pilsner is older, it's had more time to mellow, so I guess I'll take a couple bottles of that. Might as well take up one of the zucchinis - they usually only last through January, so it's time to be using them up. And a few tomatoes too - they don't have much taste, but will add a bit of color to sandwiches.

The celery is a new experiment this year - one I think I'll continue. Garden plants dug and potted up last fall, they're continuing to grow slowly in the dark cellar. I think I need some celery for the beans too. Hmmm - don't need any potatoes or beets. They can wait for another time.

But I do need a pickle! The pickle crock is another new experiment - and another success. Every ten days or so, a viscous layer of scum has formed on top of the liquid in the crock, but it's thick and firm enough that I just pinch it and pick it up in one piece to toss. De-scummed, I lift up the plate holding the pickles down and fish out one to take too.

Heading back up, it's almost dark - the chickens have probably gone to roost. So before heading back to the house, I go down to close up the coop for the night. A quick check of the nest boxes reveals two eggs - what a nice surprise! Everyone has pretty much feathered back out after last fall's molt, and a couple are starting to lay again already. What good girls!

Drizzly Day

A steady drizzle of rain, starting last night and on into today, and the six inches of snow from two days ago is melting. Instead of shoveling, I'm out checking that my little drainage trenches keep the water flowing around the house instead of through my front door (we live at the mouth of a small canyon, on the downhill side of the street). So far, so good.

Outside, there are no birds to be seen around the feeders. However, a lone little sparrow hawk perches in a nearby tree, patiently waiting for his chance to get something to eat. For now, it's a standoff - they hide, he waits.

Dinner last night: a winter squash (the big one, that got a little too close to the wood stove while curing this fall - a patch on top sunk in and turned white, but the inside looked fine when I cut into it) from the bin in the bedroom, cut in half and into the oven for an hour. I had some raviolis ready to cook, a pint of tomato sauce ready to heat up, but wanted a little something more.

How about some eggplant? home-grown eggplant? in December, with snow outside on the ground? Ah, yes, with a bit of advance planning, entirely possible. Eggplants store quite well for a couple of months, if snugly wrapped in plastic, on a shelf in my kitchen pantry (the zucchini stored in the cellar are still in fine shape too - I love experimenting with my wintertime fresh food options). I unwrapped a couple of small eggplants harvested last October, just before the first killing freeze. Sliced, dipped in egg and crumbs, they joined the squash in the oven for the last 30 minutes baking time.

I Miss the Ping!

Canning jars used to seal with a clear, ringing, PING! It was almost bell-like, and loud. I could hear it throughout the entire house. I'd take a load of jars out of the canner, and could count them off as each sealed, no matter what room I was in.

I still use the narrow-mouth, two-part lids-with-a sealing ring I always have, the same jars, the same headspace. But now, whether due to probably a cost-cutting change to the metal or the shape of the sealing "dimple", there is no more "ping". Jars now seal with an almost inaudible "tap" or small "thunk" sound. I sometimes miss it even when I'm right there in the kitchen. I'll look over at the jars, and the dimple is pulled down, but I never even heard half of them. I miss that PING! It was one of my favorite sounds.

I canned a last batch of tomato sauce today. I harvested all my green tomatoes last month, just before a killing freeze, and laid them out on a table across the guest room bed to ripen. Usually, my final tomato canning is done by mid-October. But this year, the last harvest was quite late, with our mellow autumn, and the house is much cooler this time of year. Thus, the last canner load now, in late November. I'm just glad to get anything at all, with as poor a gardening year as the past one was.

With company arriving later this week, it was time to get that room switched over to guest room status. I held out a couple of nice, big red tomatoes for fresh eating this week. Those still green or orange I loaded onto a tray to put down in the cellar. Those I'll bring up, a couple at a time, to ripen in the warmer kitchen throughout the winter. The taste certainly can't compare to vine-ripened summer tomatoes, but is better than the ones I refuse to buy in the grocery store. The rest of the tomatoes warmed up the house as they cooked down into sauce today - nine pints in the canner, plus two more in the freezer.

More Autumnal Chores

The cupboards and pantry are filling up with jars containing this year's harvest. One of the pints of yesterday's tomatillo salsa didn't seal, so it went into the refrigerator, joining the jar that wasn't quite full. There was room in a top corner cupboard for the rest.

That top cupboard shelf also holds my apple cider vinegar jar. It had been almost 2 months since I'd fed it, and as long as I had the step-stool right there, I figured I might as well take care of that too. The five gallons of this year's cider are still burbling away, in the fermentation bucket on the counter. It could be a couple more weeks before it's finished. So I went down to the cellar (skimmed the scum off the pickle crock while I was down there) to fetch a bottle of last year's hard cider.

There was a thin fresh layer of mother on top of the vinegar in the jar, plus quite a few layers of dead mother piling up in the bottom. So with well-washed hands, I pulled out the fresh mother plus one more thin one, putting them into a clean bowl, then reached in and pulled out the rest of the dead layers to throw out. I diluted the bottle of hard cider with half again as much water, poured that into the jar, and dropped in the thin pieces of fresh mother. Topped with its cheesecloth lid, the jar went back into the dark cupboard to continue its magical process of turning alcohol into tasty vinegar.

Aries went with me for the drive this morning, up to Tahoe to get the mole-removal stitches out of my arm. Doc said everything looks good and the lab reports say benign, so I'm good.

This afternoon, Aries was once again busy over at the compost bin. He'd cleaned out the chicken coop earlier this fall, and most afternoons has been out there raking leaves as they fall. He still had one last wheelbarrow load of finished compost for me, so this afternoon I dug that into part of next year's "early" bed, and raked it out smooth and level. I set out garlic and shallot cloves, from this summer's harvest, and winnowed, then sowed, spinach and arugula seeds from the dry plants I had hanging in the shed. Everything tamped down and laid over with wire to deter hungry birds, they now wait for winter's snows to water them in.

Storing Eggplant

As our cold weather season approaches, the warm weather crops must be harvested before the first frost. Dealing with the resulting glut of fresh veggies takes many forms around our house. The tomatoes picked green, set out on a table and covered with newspapers, will eventually ripen enough to be canned or otherwise processed; the cucumbers are pickled or fermented; the winter squashes and onions cured for storage.

Many gardeners don't realize eggplant, the big round Italian types, can be stored for a couple of months in the pantry. Pick your eggplants at the peak of ripeness, when the skin has a glossy sheen. Once in the house, trim the stem as close as possible to the top of the fruit, without cutting into the flesh. Lift and break off the "petals" of the green cap so the spines won't pierce the wrapping, taking care not to break the flesh. Then wrap the fruit as snugly as possible in plastic wrap, and store at room temperature, or a bit cooler. A shelf in my pantry works best in my house.

Sour Pickle Experiment

When I was a kid, I asked Santa for a ChemLab one Christmas - back then, a toy laboratory in a tri-fold tin box. The best part, for me, was the microscope. But playing with chemical mixing and reactions was fun too. I still like experimenting with chemical reactions. Only nowadays, I have a whole kitchen for my laboratory (plus now, my results are edible - well, most of the time, anyway).

The end of August this year, I had a glut of cucumbers. For some reason, they did really well (especially the hybrid Sugar Crunch - earliest, prolific, and yummy; next best were from my saved Lemon Cucumber seeds - though later to start setting fruit, they're amazingly prolific, and the last ones picked will keep a few more weeks in a bowl on the counter, on into the fall; not so good - an open-pollinated one, Long Green). I feast on fresh cukes when I've got them, and quite often have planted enough to put up as well. Only thing is - Aries doesn't like pickles, so I'm the only one eating them. I already have enough sweet relish, dill chips, sweet pickles, and bread & butter pickles. I started researching other options.

My dill chips, from my Aunt Lillian's recipe, are tasty, but not crunchy enough. Pickles can add such a nice crunch to a sandwich. Hmmm - maybe pickling them whole would be better. These were pretty good-sized cukes though - two, maybe three, to a quart jar. Then, I started looking into fermenting instead of pickling. Ooo, something new to experiment with. I like sauerkraut; I've got a nice glass crock (extra cool for playing scientist, for observing those chemical changes).

I thought it especially interesting reading about the need to cut the merest little slice off the blossom end of the cucumbers. The blossom end produces an enzyme that hastens ripening of the fruit, and if left intact can contribute to softness in pickles. News to me - I'll definitely have to experiment more with that when I next make any other kind of pickles. Ideally, leaving a bit of the stem attached to the other end also makes for a better pickle.

Especially in the older recipes, layering grape leaves in with the cucumbers was said to contribute to crunchiness in the end product. I just happen to have a couple of organically-grown grapevines, so I picked and washed a bunch of palm-sized leaves. Everything ready, I made a layer of grape leaves, shiny-side up, on the bottom of the crock, then stacked in the whole cucumbers with fresh dill, garlic, and a couple of dried hot peppers. I topped the stack with more grape leaves and a ceramic plate, poured in the lightly salted (with only a little bit of vinegar) brine, and then left it to start fermenting (the recipe I used here).

After a couple of weeks, it was smelling pretty good. The fresh cukes were still rolling in, so I pulled out the plate and top layer of grape leaves, added another layer plus more brine, and replaced the leaves and plate to let it go on fermenting.

And now, it's five weeks later. About every third or fourth day, I use a stainless steel spoon to skim the thin layer of whitish scum off the top of the water. It stills smells yummy. Inside the crock, things are really interesting. The cucumbers have lost their shiny green color, and are starting to take on a more translucent look. At first glance, it looks like a white mold is forming on the top sides of everything.

But disturb the crock and it turns into a 20-pound snow globe. The white stuff swirls around, almost flaky in appearance - floating about, turning the brine milky, and then slowly settling again.

My research said fermentation takes about 4 weeks in a 70-degree environment - our average countertop temperature this time of year. When finished the pickles should have a uniformly translucent appearance, and a pleasantly sour taste. I cut one open, and there are just little bits of still-whitish flesh. It was sooooo good! I left it out on the cutting board this afternoon, and have already eaten half of it - one slice at a time.

A lot of the sources say the finished pickles will keep 4-6 months refrigerated, but should be heat-processed for longer storage. But they also say that if you maintain at least a couple inches of brine above the pickles, and skim the top scum off regularly, they'll keep fermenting, getting sourer and sourer. Fermentation slows down too, the lower the temperature. I don't want to cook the pickles (possibly lessening crunchiness), and don't have much refrigerator space, so my plan is to try keeping them in the crock through the winter. I pulled everything out of the crock, and cleaned and re-sterilized it. I filled a quart jar with a couple of the smaller pickles, to keep on the fast-track ferment here on the kitchen counter. I then re-packed the rest of the pickles back into the crock, mixing up a bit more of the brine to top it off.

We've been opening up the cellar nights now - the inside temperature is now down in the low 60's. I'm going to move the pickle crock down there, and keep a close eye on the scum situation (if left too long, mold then forms too - ruining the pickles and possibly poisoning me). But I'm thinking, the cellar temperature will continue to drop, fermentation will slow down, and I can safely eat yummy sour pickles all winter (or until they're all gone, anyway). Worst case scenario, they'll end up in the refrigerator by February.

**Edit added six months later: Now, towards the end of March, the pickles are still doing fine down in the cellar, where temps are still in the low 40'sF. They pickled all the way through, but since then I haven't noticed that they've gotten any sour-er.

Every week to 10 days an almost gel-like layer of scum forms on the top, occasionally with a couple specks of blue-topped white mold on top of that. It's easy enough to just pinch that layer, pull it out, and toss it.

The pickles are still submerged a couple of inches below the surface, beneath the heavy china plate. When I want another pickle, I'll fish one out, redistribute those left, and replace the plate. Inside the house, I have a quart jar of brine in the refrigerator, where I keep the current pickle, cutting slices off as needed. No scum forms on the jar in the refrigerator.

A lucky bonus came from using the grape leaves. I don't know if they made the pickles any crisper, but they pickled along with the cucumbers. I'll usually eat one or two standing right there in the cellar. I have some recipes for making dolmas, grape leaves stuffed with a rice filling, and might try that if I have any left when it's time to empty the crock to move what's left to the refrigerator as the cellar warms up. They're good enough that I think I'll add even more grape leaves to next year's batch.

State of the Cellar

It's so nice to see Spring moving in, even with its starts and stops. It means fresh change for our seasonal eating choices.

The cellar has served us well through the winter, but most of those shelves are now bare. The last few carrots have been brought up to the refrigerator vegetable crisper, as have the last couple heads of cabbage. The kraut crock is down to its last inch, and as the weather continues to warm up, will be repacked into a smaller container and also brought up to the refrigerator.

The onions are gone - I ended up buying a small bag a week ago. I was very disappointed with the keeping ability of last summer's Big Daddy onions. They had grown into beautiful onions by Fall - nice size, small necks, brown skins, and then well-cured. Or so I thought. Many of them were used in the fall's salsas and tomato sauce canning batches. But as I went to use them through the winter, about half had to be tossed and others, even those that looked perfect on the shelf, were rotting from the inside out. I've ordered Copra plants for this year, and am starting seeds of Utah Sweet Spanish for an open-pollinated trial variety.

The only things left in the cellar (besides beer, hard cider, and two potted fig trees) are apples and potatoes. Both Russet and Yukon Gold potatoes have held well for me again. I have plenty left for this year's seed potatoes, and will be getting those up and going soon. The apples have softened and sweetened a bit, but there are still plenty of them in good condition too. So many, in fact, that as the cellar warms, I may be canning a batch of applesauce from some of them, and pressing out another gallon of juice to ferment into hard cider to refill my vinegar jar. Plus, enough to bring up a weekly basketful for snacking and my breakfast oatmeal until probably June. And then, of course, to make Aries' his traditional birthday apple pie earlier this week, too.

The January Cellar & Pantry

Even though the past summer wasn't the best in terms of garden output, we're still eating pretty good around here. On my latest trip down into the cellar I brought up one of the last two fresh zucchinis. By purposely letting the last few zukes of the summer grow to club-size, they'll store, unrefrigerated, for a few more months. The skin has turned almost completely golden, but the flesh is still firm.

The black-eyed peas from New Year's Day are gone. I've been cooking up crockpot full of a different dried legume regularly - adding no seasoning at the time so I can then incorporate them into different recipes during the week. This week's legume is garbanzo beans. Using some of them, along with part of the zucchini, home-canned tomato sauce, storage onions, garlic, and carrots, frozen bell peppers, spinach, and pesto, I made up a minestrone-inspired stew (I put quinoa in it instead of pasta - thickening it into stew consistency, plus adding protein). Chopped fresh tomatoes (can't compare to summer tomatoes, but the last of my paste tomatoes, harvested green, eventually do turn red in storage) made a nice garnish on top at serving time.

This afternoon, we had a potluck/brainstorming session at work. Everyone brought munchies and snacks, so I put together a dried fruit platter from my pantry. Clockwise from the top, there are sliced nectarines, plum halves, raisins, pumpkin pie leather (actually, from a big pink banana squash - even better), and pie cherries, all home-grown.

A Bit More Canning

It seemed like this year's Bosc pears all ripened overnight, down in the cellar. One day a few were just starting to change color, by the next some were only fit for the chickens. So I had to do something to process the rest of them quick. I also had some non-storage apples starting to soften, a dehydrator tray full of the last of the grapes that hadn't dried enough to store, and the last of the Asian pears still in the refrigerator crisper. Why not just mix everything together?

So I started looking for Pear/Apple Mincemeatless recipes. Most used way more sugar than I wanted. I ended up adapting this one. As it was cooking, with the orange peel and the spices, it made the whole house smell wonderful. I ended up with six quarts, plus three more cups in the refrigerator. I'm thinking I'll add some chopped nuts when I go to make a jarful into a pie.

As long as I had the grinder out, I figured I might as well get a start on my Thanksgiving dinner preparations. I made up a batch of my favorite uncooked cranberry relish - grinding together a bag of cranberries, an orange, peel and all, and a handful of walnuts, then stirring in 3/4 cup of sugar.

The grinder I found in a rental house years ago, forgotten in a high cupboard. It leaks, so I have to put a bowl on a stool underneath when I use it. When Aries built the kitchen (before I knew him), he made a pull-out wooden shelf under part of the counter. It was supposed to be a pastry board, but I have a huge piece of recycled bowling alley for a cutting board that works even better for pastry. I use the shelf for attaching the grinder (and the apple peeler) so I don't dent my countertops or kitchen table. However, if I were around when he was building the kitchen, I would have had him put the shelf on the other side of the sink. Where it is, it's too close to the stove to attach those old right-handed appliances on the other side, where they'd be easier to use. The shelf does pull out enough, though, that I can still turn the handle. It's a bit awkward, but it works.

Of Cabbages and Kings

Yesterday, I got seven and a half pounds of cabbage, from ones that split and heads too little to store, shredded, salted, and packed into a crock for sauerkraut (how-to here). My cabbages grow in the same bed as my root crops. I stop watering for a week or so before digging the carrots, beets, and potatoes. But I've had problems getting enough moisture out of the cabbage, and don't like feeling like I'm bruising it instead of just packing it down.

So this year I tried soaking the heads overnight first, and then letting them drain/drip dry in the dish drainer this morning. That worked great - the cabbage shreds were crisp and crunchy, and once tossed with the salt started to sweat right away. When I packed it into the crock there was plenty of brine. I put the crock into the cellar, where it will slowly ferment over the next couple of months. I've still have 4½ nice big cabbages for fresh eating this winter too.

While I was in the kitchen, Aries picked the apples from our MacIntosh and Liberty trees (those are my potted fig trees in the wagon - not normally grown in Nevada. Right now, they're being moved in and out of the garage until they go dormant, and then they'll spend the winter in the cellar). We got a lot of apples, but they were all so small, some bird-pecked, and some of these late apples had worms in them (the earlier Freedom apples were much better; and the birds got all the Gravensteins, our earliest apple, this year). We also gleaned three baskets of heirloom apples from an old tree on a lawyers' office lawn in the old section of town before the snow. They're beautiful, big apples, but three-quarters of those were wormy too. I picked through them, and put the good ones in the cellar. We're going to make a batch of hard cider from all the rest. I'll write about it when we do. After he finished with the apples, Aries started cleaning up the garden - pulling out all the plants that froze, shredding them, getting them into the compost bin.


I can't believe he did it again!
Black kale, Tuscan, dinosaur, Lacinato - whatever you call it, it's supposed to be the king of kales for taste and texture. Last year, I had one plant, that I stuck in with the peppers and tomatoes after a pepper plant died. I was really looking forward to having a wonderful winter green for fresh eating. But after the first freeze, and Aries had cleaned up the garden, my beautiful kale plant was gone! He'd pulled it up along with the dead plants. "Couldn't [he] see it was a thriving plant, not dead?" He said he was sorry - he didn't realize it was something I wanted. What else could I do but forgive him?

This summer, I set out three black kale plants, this time, in with the rest of the greens and hardy plants. They grew great. The aphids didn't bother them, neither did the recent snow - all three were strong healthy plants almost two feet tall. And today, all three were gone! Again! His defense: "they didn't look like food."

Aaarrgggh! It's thriving, in a vegetable garden - what else would it be! I still can't believe it - especially since he left a puny little chard plant growing right next to them, and some weedy bitter overgrown mustard plants down the way a bit (he also pulled up all my lettuce plants I had purposely let go to seed so I could harvest the seeds - ok, they did look pretty weedy; and the last head of cauliflower - now that had to look like food). Sometimes I just don't understand how that man thinks!

Ok, I have to get over it. What's done is done. On another note: Two nights ago, the full moon rose over the middle of Prison Hill. Our house is pretty much square with the compass points, and the moon was due east, straight out from the deck and our big window. Then tonight, when I went out to close up the chicken coop, the moon was coming up waaaaay over to the northeast, clear over above the north end of Prison Hill. I couldn't even see it from our big window. Even though I've noticed the same thing before (was it this time of year? maybe), it's hard to believe the moon's orbit wobbled that much in only two days (they haven't bombed it yet, have they?). Or is the Earth wobbling on its axis? Maybe that's why we're having earthquakes and tsunamis? Can the ancient Mayans be right after all?

Root-Pruning Cabbage

Dang! Usually I don't have to worry about my cabbages splitting until mid-September. They do just fine on their every-third-day soaker hose watering. But we had a very-rare-in-August rainy morning yesterday, and today this is what I found.

Split cabbages will continue growing, but the leaf-edges die where the split is, and any layers down inside that are cut off from the stem also die. So using a split cabbage gets more difficult the longer you leave it. I'd just cut a fresh head a couple of days ago, but this one will now be used first.

I have another one just starting to split, and three more heads still intact. I don't have much room in my refrigerator. It's too early to be making sauerkraut - I haven't ever started the cellar to cooling down. The warmer the temperature, the faster kraut ferments. I prefer letting my kraut ferment slowly, over eight to twelve weeks, in Fall's cooler cellar temperatures (I don't can my sauerkraut either - I just store it in the crock over the Winter in the cellar, and move what's left into the refrigerator in the Spring). So I want to keep my cabbages "on the hoof" out there in the garden as long as possible.

Splitting happens when cabbages take up too much water too quickly. Yesterday's rain was enough to cause it here. They're also prone to splitting as they get closer to harvest size. In our short season, early cabbages usually grow just fine until early fall, and then root-pruning will hold them until harvest time, just before the nights drop below freezing.

Today, I cut the top right split cabbage, and root-pruned the rest. I just sunk the shovel blade all the way in between each cabbage stem and the soaker hose. This cuts a good portion of the roots and slows the growth. Old-timers say to give a good quarter-twist to each plant to break off some of the roots, but I'm afraid of breaking the stem and/or not breaking enough of the roots so will just stick with my shovel method. I'll keep an eye on the top left one. If that split starts to go deeper, I'll have to get it into the refrigerator too. This year, I'm also growing some late cabbage for the first time, just to see how it does. It hasn't even started to head yet, so I'm hoping for a long, mellow Fall - cabbage to store, and a slowly-fermenting crock-o-kraut in the cellar.

Start the Water Boiling - It's Applesauce Time

So, my canning season has started. I don't get fruit crops every year, depending on how our late Spring frosts hit, but this year have various apples, pears, Asian pears, plums, peaches, and red grapes. I dry a lot of my fruits, make bumper crops into hard cider, freeze some things, and can a bit. Canning a batch or two of applesauce is on my must-do list every year.

The birds and ground squirrels got all my Gravenstein apples (and most of the Italian prune plums). But the Freedom apples weren't far behind in the ripening schedule and for some reason haven't been as badly attacked (yet). I've hung junk CD's in the branches of most of my fruit trees, hoping the sunlight flashing off the shiny sides twisting in the breeze will startle the birds away, and Aries put up a pole for a whirly-gig too.

I pruned the tree quite a bit earlier this year to open up its shape, and thinned the fruit set while I was at it. So I have some nicely-sized fruit, easy to reach, and very little insect damage. The apples have a nice flavor and crunch for just eating out of hand, but are also supposed to be good for juice and sauce.

I had two half-pints of applesauce left in my pantry. Two days ago, I picked a couple big bowlfuls of the Freedom apples, and sat down in front of a movie on TV to quarter, core, and peel them all. I got them all prepped, soaking in a lemon juice solution, and then had to get ready to go work a tourist outing up at Lake Tahoe. So I put the whole pot into the refrigerator for the night. Yesterday, I drained the apples, put an inch or so of apple juice into the pan, covered it, and started them simmer/steaming. I'd already checked - I had plenty of lids on hand, so I got out a bunch of empty half-pints (the best applesauce size for the two of us), and got lots of jars and rings into my big canner full of water, and started that to heating.

When the apples were soft, I mashed them with a potato masher right in the pot (no sugar, no spices, just apples cooked in a bit of juice - I can always dress it up when I open up individual jars). I've cut notches in 2-pint increments into the handle of a wooden spoon. By standing that up in a pot of sauce I know how many jars it will fill. Even so, I don't put the lids into the hot water until after I have all my jars filled - no use prepping ones I won't need. I had enough for 16 half-pints. Hot jars are filled with hot applesauce to 1/4" headspace, rims wiped clean, hot lids and rings applied.

Our well water is a bit hard, so I always put a splash of vinegar in the water bath water. I process the jars, in the covered canner with water an inch over the top of the top layer of jars, for 10 minutes after the water comes back to a simmer. Set out on my cutting board, I leave them overnight to cool, listening for the lovely "plunk" (they used to "ping" - I think they've changed the thickness or center-shape of the lids in the past few years) as each jar seals.

This morning, all had sealed (yay!). The rings aren't necessary for storing sealed jars - I remove them and, once washed, keep them in a box under the counter. When I empty and then clean a jar, I put an old lid upside-down (to keep the old sealing compound from sticking to the rim) topped with a ring for storage - protecting the rim and keeping the empty jar clean (just hate dealing with boxes of dusty jars, with dead spiders in them). I give the sealed jars a quick rinse under cool running water, dry them off, and stick a little label with item and date on the lid (Mom just writes the date on the lid with a grease pencil). I don't have a big central canned goods storage area - each item has its own particular place. Nineteen jars of applesauce fit into the bottom of an old bread box in my little pantry - just about what the two of us will use in a year.

Braided, Tied, and Hung to Dry

After a couple of days outside in the shade, it was time to get my garlic harvest into shape to store. Usually, when garlic is almost ready to harvest, the leaf tips turn tan and the green tops flop over, right at the soil line. When that happens on a few of the plants, I'll bend the rest of the crop down too and pull the soaker hose away to let the soil dry out for a few days before digging up the bulbs.

This year, my garlic didn't do that. The tops just dried out and all turned tan at once, still standing upright, and earlier than usual. They're really nice-sized bulbs - I got five pounds of garlic from a 2' x 4' patch. But having to pull dry plants out of still-damp soil means I don't know how well they'll store this winter. When garlic is harvested with the tops still somewhat green out of dry dirt, as it cures the wrapping layers stay intact, protecting the cloves inside all winter and into the spring. But the outer layers were already so dry that they flaked away as the dirt dried, leaving less wrapping around the bulbs. I'll have to keep an eye on the bulbs later this season, and if they start feeling shrunken inside the wrapping I'll have to do something - probably make garlic powder by peeling and dehydrating what's left.

But I prefer fresh garlic, and Mother Nature meant for it to last through the winter to grow anew in early Spring. So I'll try curing and storing it as usual for now. I didn't want to chance rubbing away any more layers, so my garlic braid isn't quite as pretty and shiny-white as usual. I just cleaned off the dirt a bit and trimmed the roots with shears. The bulbs too dry to braid are in a basket on the counter to be used first. I use braided garlic from the bottom up in order to keep the decorative aspect nice as long as possible, so I started braiding with smaller bulbs, those with cloves starting to separate, and those with the least wrapping layers. I add in bulbs to the right, left, and center as room is available, keep braiding a bit more at the top, and then bend the braid to the back. Then, using a short length of string, I tie tightly close to the top bulbs (the stems will shrink as they dry), criss-cross wrap a few times and tie again higher up, and then knot a hanging loop. I'll leave the braid out in the open kitchen to cure for a couple of weeks, then move it into the cooler, darker pantry to store. Then, I'll just have to keep an eye on it, watching for withering. The two biggest, nicest bulbs, those with the long stems not part of the braid, I'm saving to break apart to plant come October.