Checking in again with the veggies in storage, about a month after the last inspection, and they’re all still doing fine! The potatoes are starting to sprout. The red onions, not recommended for long storage, are losing their color on the outside, but still firm, and colorful a couple layers in. Garlic: check! Butternut squash, even with the healed nicks from last summer’s intense hail attack: check! Months since harvest, casually tucked away in a closet/pantry, still delicious!
onion
Root food
Beauty is in the frying pan! A sampling from the small cache of onions, potatoes (fingerlings), garlic, all pulled from the ground last summer, sitting since then in boxes and bags on the floor of a closet that could be called a pantry. Still firm and looking not really worse for the months of storage. There’s something extra satisfying about eating tasty food that’s been lying around, unrefrigerated, for several months!
Bonus onions!
Leftovers from the previous season can turn into a delicious spring surprise! These onions grew from ones that were overlooked during fall harvest, and in a spot that hasn’t yet been tilled. There’s an official name for this: volunteering. Strictly speaking, I think a volunteer plant means it comes from seed dropped by a previous crop, or carried in by wind, birds or otherwise. These onions are new growth this year, from mature onions left in the ground over winter, kind of like leaves coming back on a tree. In any case, I think of them as volunteers, but mostly as a tasty treat.
Onion sets
Tiny onions, grown the year before, pulled up early and dried out, are known as onion sets. They’re a bit of a shortcut. Pop them in the ground, and they begin growing again. Starting onions from seed gives you a lot more choice in variety, but it also means taking up indoor space under the lights to produce seedlings. When you simply want…onions, in the tiny market garden, onion sets is a quick and easy way to go!
October harvest
Great weather into the first week of October, with no hard frost so far. The veggie harvest list: beets, carrots, peppers, garlic, onion, green onion, zucchini, spinach, kale, lettuce, cabbage, butternut squash, radicchio, broccoli, eggplant. Nice!
Mid-September harvest
The weather’s been fine, no big frost worries, and the harvest is nice. For the sake of a list, in no particular order, we have: spinach, onion, garlic, carrots, bok choi, broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, kale, hot and sweet peppers, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, green beans, beets, and…eggplant! I think I got ’em all. The set-up on a strip of canvas is for a newsletter photo–the lighting is an overcast sun, the studio is the field!
Beef meets kale
Yes, yet another thing to do with KALE! In a small fit of inspiration, I tore up a few fistfuls of baby Red Russian, and tossed ’em into the pot with carrots, onions, grass-fed beef shank, salt, pepper, garlic and water, slow-cooked for quite a while, six hours or more, adding brown rice towards the end. Voila, Beef and Kale Stew. The kale contributes just a hint of seaweed taste, but maybe that’s just me. Anyhow, excellent. Will do again.