What to do With All These Radishes?

We grow French Breakfast Radishes in the garden.  Radishes are one of those crops you grow that is one of the fastest maturing things I can think of.  We cut them up in salads and we also enjoy them in a radish dip we make.  I highly recommend it.  The recipe is from a blog post back in 2017 you can see by clicking HERE. 

We still have a bunch of radishes in the garden.  We'll make another dip or two, but wanted to try our hand at lacto-fermenting some.  We have used lacto-fermentation in making Sauer kraut, kimchi, pickles, and gingered carrots.  Now, we'll do radishes.  This afternoon we picked a colander full.

We washed them up and scrubbed the dirt off of them with a stiff-bristled vegetable brush.

We wanted to see how much we picked.  A hair over 2 pounds.

I cut the bottom root off as well as the top.  In probably an unneeded step, but I like to follow directions, I peeled the radishes with a potato peeler.  By the way, I want to give credit, we're using a recipe from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon coupled with one from The Survival Gardener's Blog.

We cubed up the radishes and packed them in wide mouth quart sized jars.

The recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon of salt, 1/4 of whey and then fill with water.  A little backstory on the whey.  We make the whey as a byproduct of making kefir yogurt.  Whey is what drips off, leaving the curds behind.  Whey is a natural preservative.

The whey and salt and water are added and thoroughly mixed to ensure the salt dissolves.

Then the mixture is poured over the radishes in the jar until it fills.  You want to make sure the radishes are beneath the surface.  To accomplish this, you'll need a follower.  We don't have any followers, but we improvised.  In the jar on the left, we used a crystal napkin ring to weight down a pint size lid to hold all the radishes under the fermenting liquid.  A few cubes escaped.

For the jar on the right, I used a leaf of cabbage torn a little larger than the size of the jar to push all the radish cubes down.  This worked much better!

We'll allow to sit at room temperature for five days and will then place in the fridge where they'll last for months.  Anxious to try them!  They are supposed to be tart and tangy.  We'll report back if we were successful (if they are tasty).

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.

The Fall Garden is IN!

I'll post more photos this weekend, but I am pleased to say that the fall garden is all planted.  With the hurricanes and the rigors of work, it is an amazing thing - at one point I didn't even think I would have time to put in a fall garden, but it is done!  Granted, the Back to Eden Gardening method has really made gardening SO much easier.  It is essentially no-till, except for the narrow seedbed I prepare for each row.  Here are some radishes that are popping up out of the ground:

I have about one season of seeds saved in the freezer and some in other safe storage, but as I plant the seeds, I re-order the non-hybrid seed for next year.  One interesting thing that I'm noticing when trying to replenish my seed inventory is seed scarcity.  At several of the seed merchants I patronize, much of their seed is marked OUT OF STOCK.  I was still able to get a few items.

I haven't seen that before.  I figure that the Covid-19 scare has many people purchasing seeds.  Perhaps it is the civil unrest and government uncertainty that has prompted citizens to buy seed inventory until its out of stock.  Whatever the reason, it is a good idea to know how to save seed from your open pollinated seed stock.  I will re-double my efforts to build up my seed inventory this year.

In addition to ordering seeds, I placed my order for the onion sets I normally get (Short Day Sampler).  They'll come in the mail in early January.  I have a nice spot picked out for them.  We had a really good onion crop this past year and I'm looking for more of the same in the upcoming year.

We had a cool front that blew in bringing with it stellar weather.  I can't wait to work in the garden this weekend!

Making Radish Dip

If there is anything easier than growing radishes, I haven't found it.  The trouble with radish growing,  is how many different things can you do with all the radishes you grow?  I mean, they are okay in a salad, but what else can you do with your bumper crop of radishes?  I'll show you in just a minute.

Intermixed with the random assortment of winter weeds is a nice, healthy crop of radishes.  I'll get around to weeding the radish plot later.  They are young and tender - about the size of your thumb.

I ventured out in the misting rain and picked a nice little handful of some of the biggest ones, cleaned them up in the rainwater barrel and fed the radish greens to the cows.  The radishes were brilliant red with white bottoms.

I had plans for these little radishes.  In our 'snack drawer,' I spotted a box of Ritz crackers that Tricia bought and it gave me an idea to make some radish dip.  We love this stuff and haven't found anyone who doesn't.  It is the simplest thing to put together.  You need the following ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
6 radishes (I added a couple more since these were small)
4 cloves garlic, peeled
salt and pepper to taste
chili powder (optional)

First thing you want to do is to mince your radishes and garlic in a food processor.  Don't puree it, just mince it up.

Then, simply pour the minced garlic and radishes into a bowl that contains your softened cream cheese and stir with a spoon.  You might think about putting this in the food processor to mix, but don't do it!  We tried that and found that it makes the dip too much of a liquid consistency that we didn't like.  Just stir it all with a spoon, adding salt and pepper to taste and a dash of chili powder, if desired.

Put it in the refrigerator to chill and then bust open a sleeve of Ritz crackers and scoop up some dip with a cracker.  I promise you'll enjoy it!

You may want to ration it, though...

Radish dip disappears quickly.  Fortunately, we have more radishes growing in the garden!

Delicious Party Dip

Tricia makes a delicious party dip that our family loves.  It doesn't last for very long. It is not made from something that you normally think about when making a good little appetizer or snacking dip - Radishes.  I stumbled across this recipe a couple of years ago when searching for something to do with a bumper crop of radishes and now radishes have become a staple crop in the fall/winter garden.

Here's a shot of the green leaves of a whole row of radishes growing right now:

A robust row of red radishes

Let's pick a nice handful:

Ruby Red Radishes

Of course when I'm in the garden, the girls have been conditioned to come running for a snack that I hand over the fence.  I pulled the tops of the radishes off and gave them to Rosie.  She was a happy little lady.

Thanks for the snack

Now if you're going to make dip, you need crackers.  Tricia decided to try to make crackers from scratch. With a cup of the cornmeal that we had hand-ground from whole kernel corn, she added a half cup of buttermilk, 3 tablespoons of butter, 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 teaspoon sea salt, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 1/8 teaspoon Criolla Sella pepper, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder and 1 teaspoon garlic powder and she kneaded it all up and rolled it out flat.

Rolling the dough out flat

Then she sliced it into 'cracker-sized' pieces.

Cutting crackers

Then she popped them in an oven heated to 350 degrees F and baked for 15 minutes.  There's also a pumpkin pie in there as well - yum!

Lovin' in the oven!

And here we are - homemade crackers!

Snack Crackers

So let's make our dip or the crackers will disappear before we have a chance to dip them.  First, we cut off the root and what's left of the stem.

Cleaning up a few radishes

We peel a few cloves of garlic:

Garlic

We soften up a brick of cream cheese and cut it into squares and put into a bowl.

Cream cheese for the dip

We put the radishes and garlic in a food processor and chop them up until they are finely minced.  When you open the top, you get a big whiff of spicy radishes.

Chopping up the radishes and garlic

Spoon the radish/garlic mixture into the bowl of cream cheese and stir.

Once mixed up, add a splash of kosher salt and a dash of Criolla Sella ground pepper.  You can get creative and add chili powder, if you'd like, for more flavor.  Stir it up again to mix it all up.

Salt and red pepper

Now the only thing left to do is to eat!  Grab a cracker (or three) and help yourself.

A mouth-watering up close view

This is spicy and good.  We almost ate the entire bowl this evening.  No worries, we've got lots more radishes growing in the garden.  This recipe is so quick and easy to make, you'll be snacking in no time.