Here is a picture of our first picking this summer. Sungold, Sweet Treats, Sweet Baby Girl, Blue Creme Berries, Rose Quartz and one Brad’s Atomic (it’s the metallic looking one). We also picked our first cucumber from our Spacemaster in a container.
Brad’s Atomic Grape cherry tomato
Various cherry tomatoes picked July 20, 2019
Spacemaster space saver bush tomato
It is no wonder that the Beaver Dam pepper was nearly lost to posterity, trampled upon by the market demand for easier-to-grow pepper varieties that don’t require such laborious agricultural techniques as planting individual stakes for each pepper plant.
The eponymous pepper came to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, in 1912, with Joe Hussli, a Hungarian immigrant who couldn’t conceive of a new American life without a little peppery taste of home. Locals and descendants of friends of the Hussli family like to say that the Husslis planted the seeds, grew the peppers, and shared the seeds with friends and neighbors, thus setting up a little community of Beaver Dam pepper growers who appreciated the delicious plant’s mild bite, enough to pass the seeds down for generations. There are pepper-growing families in Beaver Dam who have saved seeds from at least the 1980s. However, over generations, farming of this pepper has dwindled considerably as hybrids flood the market.
Today, Beaver Dam still celebrates its favorite pepper in the form of an annual Beaver Dam Pepper Festival. Fans can buy the prized crop from local growers, eat pepper sausages, and even participate in an apple pepper pie–eating competition with the town sheriff. Current growers, who descend from a long line of Beaver Dam pepper cultivators, also give presentations on the plant’s history.
For locals, preserving the town’s pepper is crucial. The story of its near-extinction is a story of how our current food culture has prioritized efficiency and shelf-life over flavor. The Beaver Dam, an heirloom variety, requires more care in growing than hybrid peppers that are hardier, more disease-resistant, and thus more dependable in terms of yield. But organizations such as Seed Savers and Slow Food USA are building up a steady base of growers yearning for flavor and willing to return to traditional, sustainable methods of farming. Thanks to their interest, the Beaver Dam pepper has been preserved and there are enough seeds available now to bring the pepper back from the brink of extinction.
The peppers start out lime-green but gradually mature to an orange or blood-red color, over a period of 80 days. Between three and eight peppers grow on each plant. Thick-fleshed, the peppers are mild-to-hot with an appealing crunch that is great in salads and fresh salsas. They also go brilliantly sliced into a sandwich or stuffed with a rice or meat filling. And some fans insist that they’re an absolute must in Hungarian goulash. The peppers are between 500 and 1,000 SHU on the Scoville heat scale.
For those not in the Beaver Dam pepper inner circle, the seeds are also available through organizations such as the Seed Savers Exchange, a repository of heirloom seeds meant to preserve endangered varieties of garden and food crops.
Introduced by the late Ben Quisenberry, Ohio. this is an indeterminate, potato leaf plant producing a good yield of large, 1 lb., dark pink, meaty tomatoes. Small seed cavity. The variety was part of the Ben Quisenberry Collection, which also contributed the variety Brandywine. Stump of the World also known by some as Big Ben, is a bit smaller and more productive than Brandywine, but like Brandywine, offers outstandingly rich flavor An historic and VERY popular variety for marketplace appeal.
The name: one theory is that this variety was named by Ben Quisenberry after a bible reference, as Ben was a very spiritual man. The speculation is that the ‘Stump’ being referred to is the stump or root of Jesse in the bible.
In my research on this tomato, I found an interesting article written by The Seed Savers Exchange on the background of this tomato name. the link is below.
http://blog.seedsavers.org/blog/tomato-tasting-winners
Whatever the origin, I truly do love the Brandywines and am always anxious to try others by Mr. Quisenberry. He was a legendary seedsman.
Here you are looking about 1000 or so peppers seeds.
Here I am planting pepper seeds and some flowers. I planted 50 different varieties of peppers, superhots, sweet bell, non sweet bells, hot and medium hot peppers. I was scared to death to touch the seeds from the superhots so I used tweezers to place them in the seedling pots. My luck, I would have touched them and then my eye, not thinking! Ouch! This was on January 15. They have almost all come up now. We have a ton of baby jalapenos. For all of my seeds I use a sterile seed starting mix and clean single pots. Damping off is an ugly thing!
This is how my pelletized petunia seed came. It is put into a gel cap, and looks sort of like Contact cold medicine. Depending on variety, there are 5 to 10 seeds. I love working with it in this form, much easier to not over sow. In it’s “wild” form, it is like brown dust. You might think you used 25 seed but in reality, you just dispensed 349 seeds!
Such tiny little seeds.
Petunia and Million Bells seeds don’t like to be covered. They need light to germinate. Peppers on the other hand need a thin scattering of seed starting mix over them. Always read your seed packet to see what the light requirements are for germination.
Million Bells is another one that I like to work with pelletized. They are coated with a clay like substance. the seed lays on top (press into the seed starting mix) and wet with water. This softens the clay coat and they are able to germinate. I use tweezers to distribute as evenly as I can so they can grow after germinating and not crowd each other. They take a long time to obtain a size that I like transplanting. I have found there is no point in rushing them.
Softneck garlics are well adapted to warmer climates. It is softneck garlic that you are likely to find in the grocery store, because softneck garlic stores and travels better than hardneck. The types of softneck garlic you are most likely to encounter are Artichokes (with a sub-group of Turbans) and Silverskins.
Artichoke Garlic
Artichoke garlics (sativums or softnecks) are the most commonly grown commercial garlic because they are easier to grow and produce larger bulbs than most other garlics. They store well and this is what you probably buy at the grocer’s. In fact, most people aren’t even aware that there is more than one kind of garlic.
Artichoke garlics are generally very large, and have a wide range of flavors with some like Simoneti and Red Toch being very mild and pleasant and others such as Inchelium Red and Susanville, have greater depth of flavor. Purple Cauldron (in the sub-group Asiatics, now considered a hardneck garlic) is much stronger and sticks around for a while. Chinese Purple (another hardneck Asiatic) is instantly hot!
The Turban sub-group of artichoke garlics tend to be the most colorful artichokes and have fewer cloves per bulb than the others. The turbans also harvest earlier and store less long than the other artichokes and a good bit stronger in taste as well. (I didn’t find much information on the turban garlics, sorry.)
Some Artichoke Garlic Varieties
‘Kettle River Giant’, giant bulbs, 10-15 cloves/bulb, early harvest, medium, stores 6-7 months.
‘Inchelium Red’ Harvests mid-season – stores 6-7 months. Grows very well in warm winter areas. In 1990 Rodale Kitchens, part of the parent organization of Organic Gardening magazine, sponsored a garlic tasting contest. Inchelium Red won. It usually has anywhere from 12 to 20 cloves and is large enough that even the interior cloves are generally of good size. Bulbs are usually over 2 and a half inches in diameter and will weigh several ounces each.
‘Red Toch’ Harvests early in season – stores 6-7 months. Semi-rich but very mellow. Grows very well in warm winter areas. It is not quite as mild as Chet’s and not quite as strong as Inchelium Red. Red Toch averages fairly large bulbs that are a little larger than Chet’s but not as large as Simoneti or Inchelium Red.
‘California Early’ Harvests Mid-late season – stores 6-7 months. This one of the two Gilroy cultivars is the one you’re least likely to find in the local supermarkets because it is processed into dried and pickled and otherwise processed garlic products. California Early is a little bigger and sweeter than California Late, which is definitely on the hot side. Cal Early is an excellent all- around general use garlic and a wonderful baker.
‘Applegate’ is a mild and mellow artichoke garlic and is a good garlic to grow in warm winter areas.
‘Early Red Italian’ Harvests early in season – stores 6-7 months. It has a semi-rich flavor and a little bite, but is still on the light side.
‘Lorz Italian’ An Heirloom Garlic. Excellent strong garlic for warm winter gardeners. Harvests mid season – stores 6-8 months.
‘Thermadrone’ from France, Harvests in early-mid season – stores 6-7 months.
‘Simoneti‘ Harvests in mid-season – stores about 6 months.
‘California Late’ Harvests Mid-late season – stores 6-7 months. One of the two cultivars you’re most likely to find in the local supermarkets, along with California Early. California Late is a little on the hot side and has more color. it is a prolific grower and a good commercial garlic
‘Siciliano’ Harvests mid season – stores about 6 months. Rich flavor, zesty medium pungency. Its richness makes it excellent for raw eating as in pesto or salsa.
Some Turban Artichoke Varieties
‘Chinese Purple’ Harvests VERY early in season – stores 5-6 months. Very strong garlic taste with a fierce heat.
‘Shantang Purple’ – Limited supply, Hot, 6-8 cloves/bulb, good for many climates.
‘Maiskij’ – This Turban garlic originated in Turkmenistan, one of those small, mountainous Islamic republics near Chechnia. The taste is medium strong, leaning toward being bold, but not overpowering.
‘Silverwhite’, almost mellow taste for 15 to 20 seconds before you experience an intense heat that lasts for about 30 to 45 seconds. Good to Fair for Warm Winter Areas, Harvests late season – stores 8-10 months.
Silverskin Garlic
Silverskins have silvery, white skins and are composed of many small cloves. They also have a nice sturdy neck that is easily braided. The flavor of Silverskins is usually stronger than Artichokes. ‘Nootka Rose‘ and ‘Rose du var‘ are both full-bodied Silverskins.
Silverskin garlics are in a class by themselves. They are the last garlics to mature and they store the longest. They also have a great range of taste, pungency, and size as well as time of maturity. No other garlics braid better than Silverskins and they will grow well in most of the USA.
S & H Silverskin has a musky, earthy taste with very little bite when eaten raw. Locati can be fiery hot. Silverwhite has a richness to it and seems almost mellow for 15 to 20 seconds before you experience an intense heat that lasts for about 30 to 45 seconds. Nootka Rose has that same richness but with only a medium heat. Silverskins have more cloves per bulb, on the average, than the artichokes and some, like Mexican Red Silver have a lot of tiny cloves while others, like S & H Silverskin and Silverwhite have almost all large cloves with very few small ones.
Some Silverskin Garlic Varieties
‘S & H Silverskin’ has a musky, earthy taste with very little bite when eaten raw.
‘Nootka Rose’ Heirloom from Washington State, rich, bold taste with medium heat, large mahogany cloves, 15-20 per bulb. , Fair for Warm Winter Areas, Long storing.
‘Locati’, can be fiery hot. Fair for Warm Winter Areas, 11-12 cloves/bulb. Harvests late season – stores 8-10 months.
‘Rose du Var’, bold, strong and long French garlic taste. 8-12 cloves/bulb Harvests late season – stores 8-10 months.
Other Silverskin varieties include ‘Mexican Red Silver’, ‘Sicilian Silver’ ,’Silver Rose’, and ’Mild French’.
Picture Courtesy of: Can’t Stay Out Of The Kitchen
I have been making this since I got my first Betty Crocker cookbook as a child. My husband hates winter squash and yams but I love this recipe. It is really good. I use Sweet Mama, Kabocha and Uncle David’s Dakota Dessert squash, which ever is handy since I am not a fan of Butternut squash. A perfect blend of harvest fruits in the fall.
2 pounds butternut squash or other winter squash (see my choices above)
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/4 cup butter – melted
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon mace (You can use cinnamon and/or nutmeg instead)
2 baking apples, (golden delicious, granny smith etc) cored and cut into 1/2-inch slices
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut each squash in half and remove seeds and fibers; peel squash. Cut into 1/2-inch slices. (I find it easier to peel the squash once it is sliced into 1/2″ slices)
Stir together remaining ingredients except apples. Arrange squash in ungreased baking dish alternating with apple slices.
Sprinkle sugar mixture over top; cover with foil and bake 50 to 60 minutes or until squash is tender.
Eat Up!
by Darius Van d’Rhys (darius) June 3, 2008
The second benefit (besides eating the garlic) is the growing garlic has natural fungicide and pesticide properties. Garlic companion planting is especially beneficial to lettuce by deterring aphids, and to cabbage. Garlic oil is effective at repelling and even killing snails and slugs.
As well as protecting other plants, garlic can also improve their flavor. Beets and cabbage are reported to be good companions that benefit from this. However, not all companion planting with garlic is beneficial. Garlic doesn’t cooperate well with legumes, peas or potatoes so do not plant your garlic too near these.
What Kind to Grow, and Where
Garlic isn’t just garlic, there are many different kinds of garlic and they’re almost all different in size, color, shape, taste, number of cloves per bulb, pungency and storage times.
So, how do you decide what to grow? I have separate articles covering each of these groups following this article and you will find good information in them. One is a general overview, this one is on basics of growing and cooking garlic, and the ones on hardnecks, softnecks and Creoles will help you decide which type for your climate and which varieties for your taste buds.
Garlic is easy to grow. Great garlic is difficult to grow.
Garlic developed in central Asia with long cold winters, damp cool springs and warm, dry summers. Since then it has been grown around the world and a few needs have changed. Varieties like Rocamboles still need those central Asian conditions. Porcelains and Purple Stripes are more tolerant but still won’t do well in a hot dry spring. Hardneck Rocamboles do poorly in warmer climates.
Garlic tolerates most soils but if you want excellent large and beautiful garlic, you need a healthy soil full of micronutrients and minerals. High concentrations of NPK fertilizers can kill off the healthy microorganisms living in the soil, as can chemical herbicides and pesticides. “If the government requires applicators to wear ‘protective’ clothing (boots, gloves, hoods and masks) to apply it, why would you want to eat it?” [1] Garlic really needs the minerals and micronutrients more than an abundance of NPK. The soil should have manure and compost added on a regular basis. Rock dusts and minerals can be added; they act like long-time slow-release fertilizers and the garden will continue to maintain fertility for years to come, with fewer applications eventually needed.
Garlic should be planted in the fall in the north. This gives time for sprouting roots to develop before the emerging plants die down with cold winter temperatures. After a few frosts but before the ground freezes hard in my Zone 5b, I cover my garlic bed with 6-8” of straw which helps prevent frost heave. When the ground begins to warm in the spring, I remove the straw so the sun can warm the emerging stalks. Sometimes the fall planted bulbs will sprout enough to send up green shoots before winter. That’s okay… they will die back and grow again in spring.
Garlic likes fertile, well-drained soil so that the bulb is above the water level and the roots deep into the moist soil. Plant the cloves root end down, about 4” deep and 6” apart in the north, and 2-3” deep in the south. Bubils (from the scapes) can be harvested and planted but they will take 2 or more years to produce a large bulb. Some vendors and growers recommend soaking individual cloves in water with bicarbonate of soda for a few minutes, and then dipped in rubbing alcohol (or 140 proof vodka) for 3-4 minutes to kill any pathogens. Use the largest cloves to grow the best bulbs for next year.
If your soil is healthy and fertile you may choose (or not) to add a foliar spray in the spring. A tablespoon each of molasses, seaweed and baking soda in a gallon of water makes a good spray used 2-3 times in spring. Do not use a foliar spray on dry plants, nor spray close to harvest. The leaves will become lush at the expense of the bulb.
When the tops just start to turn yellow/brown and fall over, gently dig the bulbs. There should still be some green inner leaves. When only about 8 green leaves remain, stop watering and let the soil begin to dry. After digging the bulbs, do not wash, just brush off loose dirt and store in dry shade for 2-4 weeks to cure. Treat them gently as they can bruise easily and thus not store well.
Store garlic warm (55-65ºF), dry (40-60% humidity) and in the dark to keep it dormant. Garlic is usually hung to dry and good air circulation is very important.
Here’s a photo journal of the whole process of preparing beds, planting, harvesting and storing:http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/gardenyear.htm
Tips on Cooking with Garlic
When the cell walls in a garlic clove are cut, diced, chopped, crushed, etc., the cloves release allicin which gives garlic its smell and taste. Peeling cloves is tedious but you can easily peel them without breaking cell walls by soaking individual cloves in plain water for an hour or two, or by dropping them in boiling water for 60 seconds. When you want to add garlic to a dish, the larger the pieces, the milder will be the flavor. James Beard’s recipe for Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic is at the end of this article. It surprisingly has the barest hint of garlic due to long cooking of whole cloves.
The finer you cut garlic, the more allicin is released, creating a stronger flavor. For a bold, assertive garlic taste, finely chop or crush the garlic. Let it rest for a few minutes, and then add it just before cooking is complete.
A good health practice to fight E. coli found in supermarket meats is to rub crushed raw garlic all over the meat. Crushed raw garlic is a powerful antibiotic that can kill E. coli, but it will not kill the bacteria INSIDE the meat. To do that, you must cook the meat thoroughly.
I personally don’t find garlic breath objectionable. However, sunflower seed oil and parsley taken together will drastically reduce or even eliminate primary garlic breath. After eating a garlicky meal, eat a spoonful of sunflower seeds and a sprig of fresh parsley and you will find your breath much less offensive to others.
When you cook garlic long and slow, it becomes creamy and less strong. Most garlic odor on your hands can be eliminated by rubbing them on a piece of stainless steel flatwear under running water.
Footnotes:
[1] http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/growing.htm
Photo Credits: Hood River Garlic Farm http://www.hoodrivergarlic.com
Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic
by James Beard
2/3 cup olive oil
8 chicken drumstick and thighs (or 16 of either)
4 ribs celery, cut in long strips
2 medium onions, chopped
6 sprigs parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon, or 1 teaspoon dried
1/2 cup dry vermouth
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of nutmeg
40 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1. Put the oil in a shallow dish, add the chicken pieces, and turn them to coat all sides evenly with the oil.
2. Cover the bottom of a heavy 6-quart casserole with a mixture of the celery and onions, add the parsley and tarragon, and lay the chicken pieces on top. Pour the vermouth over them, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add a dash or two of nutmeg, and tuck the garlic cloves around and between the chicken pieces. Cover the top of the casserole tight with aluminum foil and then the lid (this creates an air-tight seal so the steam won’t escape). Bake in a 375°oven for 1 1/2 hours, without removing the cover.
3. Serve the chicken, pan juices, and whole garlic cloves with thin slices of heated French bread or toast. The garlic should be squeezed from the root end of its papery husk onto the bread or toast, spread like butter, and eaten with the chicken.
I have a ‘growing my own food’ obsession that comes from my overlapping interests in cooking, nutrition and gardening. I am also a “teacher”, a writer, a builder… and a craftsperson and… and… and many other things, LOL. In fact, I guess I am a generalist, and a Seeker. I live in the southern Appalachian Mountains on a hillside with a creek in front, and drive a 15 year old truck I lovingly call “My Farmer’s Ferrari.” Editor’s note: Darius passed away on March 19, 2014. Her readers will miss her greatly and we are thankful for her legacy of wonderful articles.
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This is Mr. Snow in the wild.
This is Mr. Snow on a cutting board about to be devoured.
One of the Dwarf Tomato Project varieties that I tried this year. It is astoundingly sweet. They are medium size, measuring about 3 inches across, as with most heirlooms, the size can vary widely.
It sits in a very large pot near my arbor and is doing well in spite of the heat. And the shade. However, it isn’t getting as much light as it would like and is producing, albeit not heavily. It takes a lot of energy to produce fruit. As my trees grow in my yard I am realizing that what was once full sun is no longer. I’d like to see how it performs in the ground out in the garden where it will get full sun.
I was surprised at how juicy and sweet this one tastes. The color is charming, a very light yellow. It would look pretty in a salsa or in a mixed color tomato salad plate as shown here. Well, it’s really a cutting board, with cucumbers from my garden (Beth Alpha) but you get the gist.
The other two tomatoes are Fred’s Tye Dye and Tye Dye which I will showcase in a future post.
No kidding, would you look a the size of that tomato! Compared to the dog anyways.
This is a photo sent to me by one of my customers. Janet Y. It is a Kellogg’s Breakfast, one of our customer favorites. the second picture shows the scale with a ruler. Almost 5 inches! Wow! I see BLT’s in her future. Plus it is only the first part of August. Ours are just now starting to color up.
The story goes like this: Ironically enough. this tomato is not named for the breakfast cereal developer of fame, Will Keith Kellogg, but for a humble gardener, Darrell Kellogg, a railroad supervisor in Redford, Michigan. He received his seed from a friend in West Virginia where it originated.
Sweet and meaty, he liked the tomato so much he saved the seed and began to breed the variety. A brilliant orange and nearly blemish free, they can grow to weigh a pound or more.
Kellogg’s breakfast tomato was voted one of the best tomatoes by Sunset magazine.
Meet Fred’s Tye Dye. I don’t know who Fred is but I love his tomato. This is another tomato out of the Dwarf Tomato Project. It is the most beautiful color, hopefully you can see the stripes in this picture, it is from my garden. The taste was delicious. The growth habit very manageable as you can see below. This is a mid season producer and is one of the taller dwarfs although mine didn’t get any taller than 4 feet. It was one of the first ones to color up. As with any heirloom, size varies from baseball to softball size. One of the other things I like about the dwarfs is their stocky stems and their rugose, regular leaves, very crinkly and dark green.
Over all, I was impressed with the tomatoes I grew out of the Dwarf Tomato Project with the exception of one.
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