Well, it’s January 2 and I’ll bet there are already a lot of people out there who are despairing of keeping any sort of New Year Resolutions. It’s ok – you are not a bad person and frankly, there is no reason to drag those resolutions around like some sort of anvil for the rest of the year if you know, deep in your heart of hearts that it’s sort of a waste.
But here’s one that we work pretty hard at here at Chez Siberia that might work for you: Gonna Eat Better. (more…)
Aunt Toby wants you to expand your mind. Once, like many people, I was the sort of person who basically gave up on the garden when ‘The Big Freeze’ showed up and mowed down the tomatoes and other less-than-hardy stuff. Then I discovered that there are veggies, mostly from the cabbage family, which can hold quite nicely after everything else is gone. Even here at Chez Siberia, there are things that are still useful and edible out in the garden, so it’s worth growing them strictly from the aspect of having fresh green veggies when otherwise, you’d be having to buy them in the grocery store.
This year, I left two that I knew would work in the snow, kale and Brussels sprouts, and two experiments, chard and fennel. The experiments were a colossal failure: The fennel froze out completely and the chard rotted where the stems of the plant met the ground. Done.
But the kale and the sprouts are fine. The kale looks pretty ragged, I admit, but it’s still harvestable, cookable and edible. The sprouts look great; they were protected by the plants’ leaves, so they are looking fresh and green. Yum.
So, while you still have time to make out your seed order for 2011, consider trying out kale and sprouts for your garden this next spring. They are hardy (I put my seed into the ground late in March or early April under glass – you can use clean plastic over hoops too, if you have them; old windows over surplus timbers or cement blocks of you don’t) and actually very tasty. Something new to most families, for sure, but a definite way to extend the season for your garden.
There are times during the year when it is cold, miserable, dark, nasty and thoroughly gloomy and Aunt Toby is not in the mood to cook anything that does not have a heapin’ hunk of comfort in it. Tonight was one of those times. It was in the 30s, windy, raining, and just depressing all day. (more…)
I feel that as a public service, I have to tell you something: Sometimes, you just have to do things because they are good for you. You may learn to like them later.
That is the way it is with kale. Just eat it. Find a way to eat it that works for you, but eat it. The nutritional benefits of this vegetable are just so huge; if you can’t bring yourself to eat any other green veggie or leafy green, eat kale. (no, I am not on the payroll of the American Kale Conference or the National Kale Board or whatever lobbying group they have; as a matter of fact, that might be part of the problem. I don’t think anyone is actually doing PR for the vegetable)
OK. Housekeeping. What IS kale?
Kale is a member of the cabbage family (Brassica oleracea Acephala Group) and because it’s leaves do not form a head, it is considered to be closer to the ancestors of cabbage than any other member of the family.
In its current state of development (you can get flat and curly leafed varieties), this is a vegetable which has been around for thousands of years and is documented as being eaten by Romans in the 4th Century B.C.
Advantages of Kale
If you are a gardener in the northern part of the US, kale is something that you can start early, eat all summer, keep into the fall and even eat after it’s gotten a hard frost. As a matter of fact, the sugars in the plant actually are accentuated by frost, so this is an advantage in terms of having a fresh veggie out of the garden after everything else has seemingly been killed off. . . .
Kale freezes well. Kale will keep under the snow. I have dug up kale for dinners in January out of the snow. It is firm, green, crunchy and juicy. During the winter, when getting fresh veggies (except for those being trucked in from places like Florida, California and Texas) can be iffy, having kale out in the ‘deep freeze’ is definitely worth it. (more…)
So, we’re halfway through October here at Chez Siberia. We’ve had a solid week of nightly frosts in the low 20s. Real ‘scrape off the windows on your car’ mornings. So, for a lot of people here, gardening season is officially ‘over’. If they’ve been efficient, they’ve ripped everything out, thrown it on the compost (except if they had blight on the tomatoes, in which case, they burned all the old plants and then disposed of the ashes), have been raking up the leaves to turn into compost or leaf mold. Game over. (more…)
I know for many people, growing things in the garden is strictly done on the ‘what costs me a lot in the store’ aspect or ‘specialty things that I can’t get locally’ aspect. So, there are a lot of people who will grow 6 different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, but who won’t grow potatoes or onions because, after all, “I can buy a 50 pound bag at the store for $xx – it takes too much room to grow enough.” Or, “I don’t have room to store” or some other reason.
And Aunt Toby is here today to tell you this: It’s worth it. (more…)
Anyone who knows me knows that Aunt Toby reads and participates in probably more blogs than she probably has time for, but what the heck. One of them, Fab Over Fifty has a site associated with it (interestingly enough, also called faboverfifty.com), which always has lots of terrific contests and giveaways (plus great articles about what women over fifty years of age are doing, creating, running, operating, challenging, combating, changing, winning and so on). I usually don’t enter contests but I did enter the one to win a free cooking class with Jyl Ferris, she of http://www.cookingforbachelors.tv/ . (more…)
As you might recall, Aunt Toby found some lonely little lost forgotten garlic plants last year and scrubbed out a little area and planted them.Second chances And promptly forgot them until they came back up in the spring. One of the wonderful thing about garlic is that they really are like potatoes, since you can’t see exactly what is going on; you have to just keep them weeded and watered and hope that you get something good when they are ready to dig up. (more…)
OK, it’s mid-July here at Chez Siberia and it’s been horrifically hot. And dry. And the garden is not, shall we say, looking its best. We’re still harvesting but there are parts of beds that have been picked over, harvested out. There are lettuces that have bolted. (the photo above is basil – which does not look picked over or harvested out – but I’m going to start taking cuttings anyway so that I have fresh basil this winter)
In short, time to clear the decks to start things for a fall garden. (more…)
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