23 Mar 2012 No Comments

Time to Harvest the Carrots!

Talk about exciting days in the garden, the kids have been waiting a LONG time for this day.  It’s time to harvest the carrots! Not only are there plenty of carrots to go around–one for you, one for you, one for you–but these kids remember the carrot cake we made from our last batch and their tongues are wagging.  Mm…  Fluffy and oh-so-yummy!

Yep.  These guys and gals would like nothing more than to feast on some more carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, but this time how about we try something different?  WHAT?  No carrot cake? 

Ah, c’mon. Now that would be just plain crazy talk.  How about a little bit of both?  Carrot juice to go with that cake, anyone?

Start grabbing carrots!  But hey–what happened to the rest of mine?

And why is my carrot so funky looking?

Hm.  Interesting.  As experienced gardeners, we know that carrots like soft beds of dirt.  All plants prefer soft dirt!  It allows their roots to grow nice and deep.  Since carrots are actually the “roots,” they try to grow nice and deep, which gives them the pretty cone-shaped appearance we’ve come to know and love. 

If the dirt is too packed?  It’s hard.  And hard dirt is “hard” for a carrot to push through as they grow.  Ah-ha!  No wonder they couldn’t grow deep.  True.  Could have been a rock or something.  But our carrots are strong-willed (like many of us children) and are determined to continue growing.  If they can’t go down?  They’ll go sideways.  Yep.  Or they’ll pour all their energy into growing wider.

But with spring break bouncing in our way this month, the kids will have a lesson in “delayed gratification.”  No fun, I know.  But definitely a fact of life.  So how will we store them until our return?

I’m glad you asked.  One of the easiest ways to store carrots (without losing half your refrigerator space) is to layer them in damp sand–sawdust will work, too!  Find a bin, box or even plastic bucket and gather (aka: purchase) your sand. 

Choosing only your best carrots, clip the greens about an inch away from the carrot end and layer them  within the damp sand/sawdust. 

Couple of things to keep in mind:  if you plan to store these long-term, choose a dark space where it remains somewhat cool.   For many of my Arctic Amigos, this will be a root cellar.  But warm region folks like us will need to find a dark corner in our garage or garden shed.  One of the keys to this storage system is to keep the ”filler” sand damp throughout the length of your storage.  Now we’ll only need to store ours for a couple of weeks, but it sure was fun to learn how to keep them longer if we needed! :)   Knowledge = fun

Also, standing your carrots upright and sifting the sand/sawdust over and around them will help when it comes time to use them.  Simply pluck and pull! 

Wunderbar.  Now start dreaming of that carrot cake!  It’s not so very far away…

by gardenfrisk in School Garden - follow the kids as they grow! Tags: , , , , , , ,

21 Mar 2012 No Comments

Cocktail Concoctions

Are we still talking gardening?  Oh yes we are—garden style!  And why not?  We drink herbs with our tea, veggies with our dinner, why not in our drinks?

Aromatic and flavorful, herbs and veggies make the perfect accompaniment to happy hour.  Mojitios are the first example that come to mind (probably because the heroine in my current “work-in-progress” loves them).  Made with fresh mint and rum, this drink has gained in recent popularity.  A contemporary step up from the Mint Julep, perhaps?  And of course Bloody Mary’s have been utilizing the celery stick for eons.  Why not throw in a few sprigs of cilantro to the mix?  Give it a sassy salsa kick!

Speaking of sassy twists, how about an adult version of my Rosemary Lemonade?  A little vodka, anyone?  Would make for a lovely summer afternoon treat, if you ask me.  One of my new favorites is cinnamon basil.  Add it to a vodka martini and suddenly you have a unique and fragrant twist!  Olives are SO yesterday.  If you miss the sword, add a cinnamon stick! I’m just sayin’…

It seems to be a trend.  One restaurant in NYC combines ruby-red grapefruit juice and Thai basil.  But basil would be perfectly comfortable in and around most summer libations.  It’s light, sweet and richly perfumed.  Now I might be talking crazy here, but what about a little cilantro in that Margarita?  Works for me! 

For delicate taste buds consider cucumber and chamomile.  Maybe a little ginger to help your belly in the process?  And if you’re growing raspberries this summer?  Plop those babies into a glass of champagne.  I think I’m relaxing already….aahh…. :)

Speaking of vodka, this is the absolute most flexible alcohol for mixing with your garden.  I mean, you can infuse this crystal clear liquid with most anything creating your own custom-made elixir.  Simply add your freshly washed herb/veggie of choice to unflavored vodka, seal, shake and store.  Ta-da!  Now key here is to allow the concoction to sit for a few days.  Taste as you go until it’s just right.  Hmm…  I’m thinking rosemary and lavender, sweet stevia and blueberry, strawberry—even hot pepper for another round of Bloody Mary’s! (Oops.  Did I miss the first one?)

Anyway, it’s always a good idea to keep our minds open and try new things in this wonderful life of ours.  Don’t want to grow old and stale.  Ewe.  Definitely not.  I thought I’d  toss a few of these ideas out there and let them fly.  What do you think?  Are you game?

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

20 Mar 2012 No Comments

Tami’s Plants are Moving IN!

It’s moving day at Tami’s garden and the leaves are a wavin’ (very exciting day).  You remember those glorious beds she prepared?  She’s filling them!  The first bed will be home to okra, aloe and lettuce, with okra providing the needed sun-relief for delicate lettuce leaves.  In Florida, we like our salads, but tender lettuce leaves don’t like the blast of Florida heat.  Enter okra and their lovely canopy of shade.

Next bed over we’ll find tomatoes, basil, bell peppers and squash snuggled together in a wonderful example of companion planting.  These plants all get along well and it’s even believed that basil will improve the flavor of nearby tomatoes.  Hm.  Perhaps even sweeten our peppers?  We’ll keep you posted!  Note:  No, your eyes do not deceive you.  She has yet to fill this bed with dirt.  It’s still in the layout stage. :) )

Along the fence line we’ll find green beans (and soon to be cucumbers).  These folks love to climb so why not encourage them?  Saves on space!

Tami also picked up some blueberry and strawberry plants (because gardening is SO fun and a gal can get carried away with little or no effort) at the store so we’ll place those together off to one side.  Why together?  Because strawberries and blueberries both like it acidic (think low ph) so they’ll get enjoy the same growing conditions.  An easy way to acidify the soil is with pine needles–or bark.  Either work and they both make GREAT mulch material for our sweet baby berries.

But Tami will need to get another blueberry plant or two if she wants fruit because these guys and gals need cross-pollination for best blueberry production.  If they’re self-fertile, they can produce on their own, but she’ll get better results with more bushes and different varieties.  Others are self-sterile (like Rabbiteye) and require cross-pollination in order to produce blueberries.  Who knew?  So check the varieties best suited for your region and make sure you have the necessary number of bushes and varieties to produce fruit.

Tami’s on her way to the plant store now!  To round out her lovely backyard garden plot, she’ll transplant her tender watermelon and cantaloupe sprouts, both of which need plenty of room to roam–which is why she planted them OUTSIDE her planter beds.

They’ll thank her later (with plenty of delicious fruit!).  Since it’s the vines that will spread, she’ll confine her energy and organic soil to the sprout area, and line her border with weed paper.  This will eliminate some hoe work (no need to remove all that grass out there) and keep her vines happy and weed-free. :)   A good thing!

And in her neck of the woods, rabbits tend to pose a problem, so she’ll attach these white tubes around her beds and line them with screen.  No sense in going to all this effort to have the rabbits turn around and eat you out of garden and greens!  Nope.  No sense at all.

by gardenfrisk in Garden coaching - watch how easy you TOO can have your very own garden! Tags: , , , , , , , ,

16 Mar 2012 No Comments

Cooking Up Some Comfort Food

Not that we need comfort food in Florida this time of year, but it is practically St. Patrick’s Day and with that comes corn beef and cabbage.  Corn beef and cabbage?  Yum.  Count me in!

In my opinion, the best part about this dish happens to be the cabbage.  Not only does it come from garden this time of year–always and added plus–it takes on a whole new personality when sautéed with sweet onions.  Granted my sweet onions aren’t ready yet (still “bartering” with gardeners from other parts of the world at the moment for my onion supply), but thank goodness for the grocery store, right?  I mean, I don’t raise beef, either but it doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the taste every now and again.

Back to my cabbage.  This is one of my husband’s favorites.  Born and raised in Ohio, his family has been making this comfort food for years.  But being from Miami, I never heard of it until I met him.  We ate mangos and plantains, fried chicken and grits.  (That’s what happens when you transplant a Georgia family to South Florida–cra-zy!)  All good food and comforting to a degree, but this dish has fast become a favorite of mine, too.   How can you not like a dish with three simple ingredients?

It’s perfect.  The only challenge comes in the fact that you have to “work” this dish and by that I mean actually stand stove-side and stir, flip, rotate–you know, cook!  That’s where I tend to have issue.  What requires a golden butter brown saute ends up caramelized quickly in my kitchen.  I could blame it on the high heat of my electric stove (real cooks use gas) or the fact that I multi-task while cooking.  Who can ignore the buzzer on a dryer full of warm wrinkle-free clothes?  Not me!

But truly it’s all good.  My cabbage dish turns out sweet and delightful and more importantly–edible.  Never good to mess up hubby’s favorite dish (if you know what I mean) so I do try to pay attention and caramelizing is a good thing.  If it works for French onion soup, it can work for cabbage and onions.  And just look at these results.

Are you salivating, yet?  Thought you would be!  Now head on over to my recipe section for complete details on how to conjure up this gourmet delight in your kitchen tonight!

by gardenfrisk in Garden skinny - my personal scoop on gardening Tags: , , , , , ,

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