A Super Salad

"Too many simple green salads suffer from lack of imagination." - James Beard

Here we are at November 7th and the highs are in the mid-80's.  Looking at the bright side, the garden is flourishing.  For the supper menu tonight, we had some homemade pesto and bowtie pasta as the main course and figured that a FRESH garden salad would be the perfect accompaniment.  If you're not busy, would you come with me and gather the ingredients?

Let's stop off at the cattle panel that doubles as a trellis for the sugar snap peas.  They are healthy and climbing and are almost five feet tall right now.  Blooms are in abundance and there are already numerous pea pods.  We'll pick some of those as they are so sweet and delicious in a salad. 

Here's the lettuce patch.  There are five or six varieties going.  We've been eating a lot of salads lately.  Several years ago I learned something that I feel embarrassed to share, but here goes.  I would harvest lettuce by pulling each up by the roots.  This was dumb.  Super dumb.  Somehow I used my noggin and figured out that if you just snap off the leaves (not by the roots), your plant will continue producing and producing until next spring when it gets warm and bolts.  Then you let it flower and save the seeds.

But for now, we'll pull off the biggest, prettiest leaves from a variety of lettuces so that the salad bowl is multi-colored.  We hear a lot about "Farm to Table" and how fresh that is.  This salad will be picked, washed, tossed and eaten within 30 minutes of harvest.  Let's grab some lettuce and get going inside to put it all together.

The lettuce goes in a salad spinner where we'll wash it up real good and spin it dry.

Not all things in the salad are fresh.  Here are some lacto-fermented cucumbers that we pickled back in the spring.  I like to cube these up and throw in the salad bowl.

Even older than that is some lacto-fermented ginger carrots from February.  So cool, tangy, and tasty!  Let's put several fork-fuls on top.

This stuff here, although its not homemade is like the cherry on top.  This olive salad is the concoction that they put on a muffelleta.  It's delicious on a salad, too.  A spoonful or three on top...

All goes in a big wooden bowl.  We'll top with grated parmesan cheese, green onions, salt & pepper.

We'll add some ranch dressing and top it off with some lacto-fermented HOT banana peppers.

We'll ask a blessing over the salad and pasta and dig in.  Super salad!

Mid-October Garden

In one word: DRY.  Of course, that's no surprise.  October is normally the driest of months.  By today's tally, it's been a month and six days since the last rainfall.  There's really no chance to speak of in the 10 day forecast.  I'm all out of the rain water that I sequester in buckets and barrels beneath the drip line behind the house.  All except for one barrel that the honeybees use to drink from.  So I've been running the sprinkler every day.  This is a sprinkler that Mom & Dad got me and we have really put some mileage on it.  We move it from one location to the other in the garden to get moisture in the soil.  This is a photo from a few weeks ago.  Even despite the lack of rainfall, the plants have grown nicely since then.

Amazingly, even as hot as it's been, the bug pressure hasn't been bad at all on the bok choy.  We've clipped all of this and eaten it since I took the photo.  It grows back quickly.  We usually cook these down like you would with any greens, but Tricia adds some ginger, lime juice and grated parmesan to the top of them.  They are really good.  This isn't something I grew up eating, for sure.  In fact, I would have turned my nose up at it, but now, I like it.

We like to plant a big variety of lettuce in the fall.  Even if we get a freeze, if we cover it, we've been successful in saving most of it.  I want to show you a new variety of lettuce we're trying out from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com).  This is called "Flashy Butter Gem" lettuce.  First time we've tried it and we achieved a phenomenal germination rate on it.  We won't know how it tastes for a week or two, though.

The leaves are a nice green color with what appears to be bloodstains on them.  I guess I'll overlook that trait.  Sure is lovely looking, though, with the morning dew beading up on the leaves before the sun evaporates it.  Just a beautiful lettuce.

But you need more than lettuce for a salad.  How about some cucumbers?  We've got some coming!  These cucumber plants looked atrocious the other day as some worms were feasting on the leaves and actually killed two plants.  That's when I dosed them up with some Neem Oil.  I'm impressed with that product.  It killed the pests and the cucumber plants quickly put on fresh new growth.

Lots of blooms coming, too!  I'm excited about some fall cucumbers for the salad.  I've got a few other garden reports coming in the next few days.  Stay tuned (and get out and enjoy this nice weather - it was 52 degrees here last night!)

The Perfect Time for Fresh Leaf Lettuce

I grew up eating head lettuce, Iceberg, to be specific.  There's nothing wrong with iceberg lettuce.  The CRUNCH of iceberg lettuce is something I look forward to when eating a salad.  However, for years we've been growing an assortment of different types of leaf lettuces and leaf lettuce mixes.  While they don't have the "crunch" of iceberg lettuce, the different colors and the variation in shapes and sizes of leaf lettuce yields a rich dividend to your salad bowl.

Right now, the weather is perfect for fresh lettuce.  It has cooled down so the pressure from bugs and worms has finally lightened up.  The cooler temps have also slowed the growth of the lettuce.  When it warms up, the lettuce grows so fast, it quickly bolts to flowering and becomes bitter tasting.  The lettuce we have been harvesting daily has been sweet, tender, and colorful.  We have so much lettuce, we couldn't possibly eat it all!  Lettuce seeds are so small and that tempts me to always plant too many.

Let's look at some of the lettuce on the lettuce row.  The first is a nice red romaine.

Next we have an Oak Leaf Lettuce.  You can see that it is aptly named.

The next three varieties are different types that are in a salad mix that I plant:

I like the way this one looks.  I call it 'freckled lettuce.'

This one is brightly colored.  It also has a crunch to it, although not as much as iceberg.

On my way out, I walked down the Sugar Snap Pea trellis.  These sweet peas are very sweet.  I like to eat them raw while I'm standing there.  Tricia also stir fries these up.  They are delicious in fried rice.  With the sun in the background, it almost appears like this is an X-ray.

We'll continue eating salads daily, while the freezing weather holds off.  Even when it freezes, I'll attempt to cover them to see if I can save them.

Quick Look at the Fall Garden (The Salad Rows)

Let's take a look at the Fall Garden.  The spring garden is tailing off with only okra and butterbeans producing still.  Well, our many varieties of peppers and eggplant are starting to really produce after a dormant summer slump.  Today, we'll look at the salad rows.  We have one full row with various types of leaf lettuce.  We've enjoyed salads deep into winter by covering these rows during freezes.  Here is the most prolific variety of leaf lettuce - the Black Seeded Simpson.

Growing up, I had never planted lettuce, so it was a new crop to learn.  In fact, when the lettuce got big, I'd pull it up by the roots.  Not smart!  My wife told me, "Why don't you cut the leaves off from the different varieties and they'll re-grow over and over?"  Why didn't I think of that?  This was the start of the "never ending salad bowl" during the fall and winter.

Here's a patch of Red Romaine.  It looks spiffy next to the Black Seeded Simpson (green leaf lettuce) that is it's neighbor to the east on the row.

Here is a mix of lettuce called Rocky Top Blend.  It must originate from Tennessee.  It has a nice mixture of different varieties and different colors.

And finally here is a variety of lettuce called Oak Leaf lettuce.  Yep, you guessed it.  The leaves mimic the appearance of an oak leaf.  The colors are different, the leaves are different, but I think that most lettuce tastes the same.  I'll admit I don't have a refined palate.  There was a salad mix I planted one time that was "spicy," you might say.  It had arugula, radicchio, and endive along with others.  It was just too strong for our tastes.  The varieties I have planted are all sweet and tasty. 

Along with every salad, you'll want to slice up some cucumbers.  This is the first time I've attempted to grow some in the fall.  If the frost holds off, we'll have at least ONE cucumber to cut up.  There's lots of blooms and lots more on the way!

Tricia likes to slice up homegrown tomatoes for the salad.  We've got lots of tomatoes coming.  I've trellised them using the Florida Weave method and they are happy, adding inches of growth each and every day.  Annie, the Nubian Goat, is coveting the tomatoes.  If she could, I promise you, she'd be in there making a mess of the garden.

We have lots of blooms and lots of tomatoes coming!  We'll see if we can get a harvest in before the first freeze hits.  The Old Farmer's Almanac shows November 26th to be the first FROST date for our area.  We can protect these from a frost, but not a hard freeze.  We'll watch and see what happens.

While I was pinching off suckers that grow in the tomato plant's 'elbows' and squeezing to death four or five late season Army worms that were feeding on the tomato plants' foliage, I saw one of our honeybees that was busy (as a bee) pollinating one of the tomato blooms.

That concludes the salad rows.  I'll show you some of the other rows a little later this week.  We still haven't planted a few fall/winter crops like mustard greens, spinach, and turnips.  Those will likely go in once the okra finishes up.

Oh Lord, Lettuce Have a Great New Year!

On New Year's Eve, we always get together and celebrate Russ' birthday.  We very seldom make it to midnight, though.  That's past my bedtime.  We toast (before midnight) with some sparkling apple cider.  It's delicious!  Happy New Year, everyone!

The lettuce crop from the garden has been phenomenal.  We have been having the best salads every single day.  We plant five different types of lettuce varieties.  At first the germination was "spotty" and there was a lot of gaps, but they have really grown and filled in all the open spaces.  Now, we have more lettuce than we could eat.  

We like to mix a little bit of each variety in the salad bowl along with some fresh spinach.  The red and green colors and the different textures and shapes of each make it an interesting looking salad.

The red romaine against the oak leaf lettuce is a visually appealing color contrast, don't you think?

Why is it called oak leaf lettuce, you ask?  Well, I'll show ya.  Here is a leaf from the oak leaf lettuce:

Makes sense, huh?  Our family at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm wishes you the Happiest 2022 greetings.  Oh Lord, lettuce have a great new year!

A (Very) Fresh Salad

We have a patch of various types of lettuce in the garden.  They are absolutely perfect right now and each night we've been enjoying a bowl of fresh salad with our meal.  We have a number of varieties in the garden, including Black Seeded Simpson, Oak Leaf, Lollo Rossa, Red Romaine, Rocky Top Mix and Red Wing Mix.

It is fun to go out and pick different types and make up a gourmet salad bowl with various lettuces freshly picked.

On some days, you can catch it just after a rain and pick it.  This saves a little time because then you don't even have to wash it.  The rainwater is beaded up on the lettuce leaves.  Clean. Fresh. Delicious.  The lettuce this year are thick, lush, and healthy.

Here are a few of the different types of lettuce below.  It is cool outside and the lettuce is young, so there is no bitterness at all.  We like to pick different types and mix them all up.

Before we show you the finished salad bowl, I'll show you something we like to put on top of the salad that kicks the salad up a notch or two.  Olive Salad Mix.  This is the stuff that is on muffulettas.  It is delicious on a salad, too.  It has olive oil, olives, cauliflower, sweet peppers, jalapenos, carrots, and celery in it.

And here is the finished product.  We also added some cut up fresh radish and fresh zucchini on top.

We'll have salad for as long as we want to eat it.  As long as it is not a hard freeze, it'll be okay.  I've covered it with a tarp in the last couple of light freezes, it they haven't been phased at all.  

I Walked Through the Garden Alone

 I walked through the garden alone,

    While the dew is still on the roses broccoli.

It's a beautiful old hymn that I took the liberty of changing to match what I actually saw.  I don't have roses in our garden, although Tricia has some pretty ones by the back patio.  On the weekends, I walk out to the hen house to open the nesting boxes.  I like to do that early otherwise the hens will lay their eggs in the strangest of places.  My walk to the hen house leads me through the garden.  The sun is still rising over the horizon and the scenery in the garden is always nice.  

Here's a quick tour:  (Dewdrops bedazzling a big, healthy broccoli leaf)

Turnips!  I planted them overly thick.  We eat the turnip greens and slice the turnip roots to give to the cows.  They love them.

French Breakfast Radishes in the foreground with brussels sprouts and garlic chives further back.  We have a great Radish Dip recipe that we always have around in a bowl this time of year.

Berlicum carrots marking the rows.  These were the slowest growing this year, but they've willed themselves to sprout up through the mulch and are in a growth spurt now.  As you can tell, the oxalis is also coming up in the carrot row despite the thick mulch.  We'll have to weed those out.

The lettuce patch.  We have several varieties growing, including Black-Seeded Simpson, Oak Leaf, Lollo Rossa, Rocky Top Mix, and Red Romaine.  We're pinching off the fresh new growth for salads every night.

 

Galilee Spinach.  This variety comes from Israel.  We like to make homemade Cream of Spinach Soup with this on cold, gloomy, drizzly nights.  It'll put the warmth back in your bones.

Bull's Blood Beets between two more rows of carrots.  As both the beets and carrots grow, the variation in color will light up this section of the garden.  I made it a point this year to widen the paths between the rows.  The mulch really helps to keep down weed growth in the walkways.  (More on this later)

Sugar Snap Peas.  The first pods are ready for picking with blooms starting to fill the trellis.

Starting right to left, we have Dinosaur Kale, three varieties of cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli. I should have allowed more space for a walkway between crops, ha ha!  They've shaded out between the rows, so we don't have to worry about weeds, but it will be a challenge to harvest!  They are very healthy!  Can't wait for harvest time!  

A Quick Look At the Garden

Most of my first planting of the fall garden was wiped out in Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta, but as the old saying goes, "If at first (or second) you don't succeed, try, try again."  So we replanted.  The cooler temperatures and decrease in insect pressure have helped the garden catch up.  Let's walk through and take a quick look.  

First the Contender Green Beans.  They are very healthy with lots of green growth.  These weren't fertilized at all.  However, they are growing right on top of a previous crop of legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil.  This photo doesn't really show, but just beneath the leaf canopy are a whole bunch of blooms.  We may have fresh green beans for Thanksgiving after all.  

This bed is planted thickly with turnips.  I'm not a big turnip fan, but our cows are.  We'll feed most of the turnip roots to the cows this winter and we will eat the turnip greens.

These are English Breakfast Radishes.  I've just pulled the mulch closely around them to discourage weed growth.  That same mulch will eventually decompose and turn in to rich garden soil.

Carrots always start slow, but once they get a foothold, they really take off.  Eventually, I'll pull the mulch around them to crowd out weed growth.  The oxalis is already threatening.

This is our lettuce bed.  We have a number of different varieties of leaf lettuce.  We like to harvest a mixture of lettuce leaves for a nice tossed salad.  The various colors of the different types of lettuce paint a nice portrait in the garden.

Here is a row of Detroit Beets.  I also have two rows of Bull's Blood beets.  I figure in another week, I'll pull the mulch closely around them as well.  In the meantime, we walk the rows and weed, but that will end once the mulch is pulled around them.

Always one of the first items we're harvesting is kale.  This is a fast growing plant that produces new leaves in record time.  It will produce for months - right up until it gets warm in the spring.

We also have Rainbow Swiss Chard at various stages of development.  The veins of the rainbow chard light up the garden with vivid color.

Here is another type of kale - Dinosaur kale or lacinato kale is a relatively new variety for us.  

Here is a big patch of cilantro that has come up on its own volunteer after seeding from the crop last spring.  We allowed it to go to seed and the plant reproduced itself many times over this year.  The cool weather will keep it from bolting and we will enjoy it with scrambled eggs for many breakfasts to come.

The Sugar Snap peas are beginning to trellis up the cattle panels I have for them to climb on.  They are planted thickly and will soon completely cover the trellis, producing crisp, sweet pods for snacking on.

I'll show you some of the rest of the garden in Part II of the premature garden tour coming up early next week.