Elephant in the Room

Placing vegetables amongst the flowers in your garden beds is a good way to fill up empty ground space. It also can add a punch of color. The best part is that you reap the added benefits of the food it offers. Herbs and beets are a particularly good choice for this. Beets offer a splash of red and you can harvest the leaves throughout the summer for the odd stir fry or salad. Pick small baby leaves for salads, they are more tender. When it's time to put the garden to bed for the winter there are delicious beets for an autumn borscht or beet pickle.

Beets in my flower garden

Not all vegetables fit in with the flower beds, however. Tomatoes in particular are not a great choice because the leaves get all brown and rangy just as the fruit is ready to pick. So, be selective about what you plant. Mesclun or leafy lettuces are also a great choice if you harvest them frequently and keep them low. Arugala and romaine grow too tall. I plucked out this elephant garlic last week that was in the middle of the flower bed and had begun to take over a whole area. It was perfect in early spring and gave some structure to the empty beds, but as the flowers filled it it needed to come out. The garlic had not yet developed cloves. This was a single clove.

Elephant Garlic

It was fabulous in a pasta dish. Very mild in flavor. Don't let the size of elephant garlic fool you. It is closer to the leek in flavor. My pasta recipe still required some garlic to be added in.

Beets for breakfast

It's funny how your harvest can dictate your diet. Perhaps that is, as it should be.

On Sundays, the first thing I usually do when I get up is make a pot of tea and pop a loaf of bread in the oven. (Sullivan Bakery's No-Knead Bread tossed together quickly before bed and proofed over night, all ready for the oven.) Then I head outside to survey the lay of the land and feed the critters. This morning I ate fresh berries right off the vine.

Then noticed several beets rising above the soil, quite ready for harvest.

I decided to take advantage of the hot oven to roast them and then, to my own surprise, just spontaneously ate them for breakfast. They smelled so good. Four roasted beets and a pot of tea. A perfect breakfast. Delicious and a first for me. But I admit, I was glad to be alone this morning and not have to share them.

I can't remember where I learned this basic roasted beet recipe, but I am fairly certain it came from Martha Stewart. Wash and pierce beets with a fork, sprinkle with coarse salt, wrap in tin foil and bake for 50 minutes in a 400+ oven. When the beets come out of the oven the skin will slide right off. They retain a slight salty flavor and you can eat the beets hot or cold. Hot is best, but served cold with balsamic vinegar is nothing to sneeze at either.

I didn't even touch the bread after the beets. I was totally satiated.

There was another happy discovery in my garden.  A row of little seedlings have pushed through.

They are from the romaine seeds I sowed only last week -- seeds collected from this very season's crop of romaine. When I look at that little row of seedlings I see Caesar salad. I just love growing my own food!

Beets

The house is starting to fill up with produce. It's that time in the season when the harvest starts to get away from you. Today I pulled beets, harvested five kinds tomatoes, leeks, elderberry, cucumber, peas and beans.

Lemon Boy Tomato

Elderberries

I was thinking of making a potato leek soup, but when the leeks look as tender as this, just braising them in a chicken stock base with some butter is enough.

I'm pickling the beets. Cook, peel and slice beets. Make syrup. Load into hot sterilized Mason jars and process.

2 cups pickling vinegar
2 cups sugar
pinch coarse salt (per jar)

I must, must, must harvest the basil soon. It's already past its prime and has been trying to flower for a week (I keep plucking off the flowers to hold it back.) 

It's the cooking and food preparation that is so time-consuming. Pesto is quick with a Cuisinart, but when you have jam, jelly, pickles and other preserves to make at the same time it can get a little overwhelming.

The work on the ponds had to wait until the end of the day.  But there has been some progress.

When can one squeeze in writing?