Checking in on the Garden After the Big Freeze

The Winter Garden is almost done.  We'll still be harvesting a lot of cabbage, chard, beets, and carrots, but other than that, the focus is on getting the spring garden planned and planted.  We'll show you a few photos of activities in the garden.  First, here is a nice shot of a head of Romanesco Broccoli.

Notice the swirls, spirals, and designs of the Romanesco.  It tastes like a normal broccoli, with a 'nuttier' taste.  We like them!  Along with this Romanesco, we've been picking broccoli florets almost every day and, along with cut up fresh carrots and beets, oven roasting them with oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper.  Delicious!

The carrots, slow to start in the fall, came on like gangbusters.  In fact, they are probably too thick.  They are healthy, however and are producing well.  Some are still small, but we're walking the rows, harvesting those carrots that are ripe.

We wash them up and eat them raw and crisp or oven roast them.  Today, they perfectly accompanied a pot roast for lunch after Morning Services at church.  Each day we need to be very disciplined about picking the ripe ones out so that the smaller ones have room to go ahead and mature.  Anything that we don't eat, we'll blanch and freeze so that we'll stretch the harvest out and eat all year.

One thing I want to show you is not really in the garden, but in our little food forest orchard of blueberries.  Right before the big freeze came, the blueberry bushes were blooming.  Those blooms eventually put on delicious berries.  Except, the freeze finished off the blooms.  See below.  The blooms are brown and dead.  There will be no berries following these blooms.

However, we've been on trails way up the mountain the the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and have feasted on blueberries along the path.  I just knew our blueberries would be okay.  Sure enough, fresh green growth is coming out on the bushes.  

In an even better sign, fresh blooms are filling the bushes where the brown blooms were and there will soon be blueberries.  That's a great sign!

The jury is still out on all of our citrus.  The leaves have all turned brown and died on our navel orange, tangerine, and grapefruit trees.  There is no fresh green growth on any of the trees.  The only positive sign is that if you scratch the tree, there is a layer of green just beneath the bark.  We will keep our eyes on the trees for fresh signs of life.

So hopeful that the dangers of freeze has passed, this afternoon, we transplanted the seedlings of many of the tomatoes we planted back in January.  We planted: Black Krim, Black Vernissage, Big Rainbow, and Pink Brandywine tomatoes.  Each afternoon this week, I will try to put more varieties out in the garden soil.  The warming days should get them growing.

The plants were about six inches tall, but I planted them deep - right up to the base of the bottom leaves.  The buried stem will become part of the root system.  The tomatoes are happy and healthy.  With temperatures reaching the upper 70's all this week, these tomatoes should really begin growing.

With longer days and warmer weather, everything should green up and really start growing.  Can't wait for Spring!

Things are Spiraling Out of Control!

What to do?   What to do?  Let me clarify.  I’m about finished harvesting our Romanesco.  Romanesco is also called Romanesco Broccoli or Roman Cauliflower.  It’s called this because it originated in Italy.  This is the second year I’ve planted it, and it is a prolific producer!  Not only does it produce well, but it is simply striking to look at!

A nice head of Romanesco

Romanesco is chartreuse in color and really stands out in the garden as it contrasts against the other green items.  Apart from the eye-catching color, there’s another thing that makes you do a double-take.  Romanesco is made up of spirals – logarithmic spirals.  What I mean is, each bud is a spiral made up of other buds which are spirals which are made up of other buds which are spirals, which are…  Well, you get the point…

Spirals upon spirals upon spirals...

Since it is a brassica, it is a close relative of the broccoli and cauliflower.  I find Romanesco to be a little crunchier than a cauliflower, with a taste approximating a cross between broccoli and cauliflower.  I walked out to the garden with a sharp knife and a large stainless steel colander.  In no time, I more than filled the colander up!

I need a bigger bucket!

As I was walking back in to bring them to the kitchen, I was looking at the bounty from “le jardin,” and I just had to set the colander down and admire the color.  The sunlight filtering through the blooming pear tree just made the Romaneso light up like a neon sign.  I’m sure my old camera didn’t really do it justice, but at least you can see a little bit of what I’m talking about:

Beautiful Chartreuse Romanesco

I’ve talked a lot about what the Romanesco looks like, but very little about what it tastes like.  It tastes great!  We normally cut it up, stems and all, and arrange it on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil and chopped garlic, and then roast in the oven.  Talk about good!  You can eat the leaves of the Romanesco as well, roasted in the same fashion.  However, the cows were begging by the fence and I obliged them with the leaves of the vegetables.  They were very appreciative.

Roasted Romanesco

If you are interested in trying this psychedelic vegetable in your garden and watching things around you spiral out of control, this is where I purchase my seeds: http://www.rareseeds.com/romanesco-italia-broccoli/  

Broccoli from Another Planet

You probably have "old stand-by's" in your garden - like tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, and green beans and every single year without fail, you plant them. You like certain varieties and you swear by them.  I'm like that too, but I also have an unofficial experimental plot where I plant odd things.  I find these odd varieties while perusing seed catalogs on dreary, wet, cold winter days while sitting in front of the fireplace.

This year I planted some purple cauliflower, some green cauliflower, and this oddity - Romanesco Broccoli.  It literally means broccoli from Rome because it originated in Italy.

Romanesco

Romanesco looks like a cross between a broccoli and a cauliflower, but if you look really close (and I wish I had a better camera to show you), it is very, very strange looking.  It has many points on it that are made up of spiral buds that are arranged in other spirals.  Those spirals make up curious patterns.

Up until it creates its head, you might easily mistake the plant for a normal broccoli or cauliflower plant, but then when it starts growing its head, you know immediately that this is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill broccoli.  No, this thing looks like it is truly from another planet.  Luke Skywalker, from Star Wars, was a farm boy on the planet Tatooine before rising to fame.  Yes, I'll bet this is what Luke probably grew before becoming a Jedi.

Romanesco spirals

Have you ever noticed that so many things in nature have patterns that are distinct and orderly in a mathematical arrangement?  Things like the pattern on pine cones, pineapples, artichokes, sunflowers, and romanesco...  Looking at things like this is evidence to me of a Divine Creator. Things like this just couldn't have been created by accident.

In fact, since we're talking about "Broccoli from Rome," I thought this verse is quite appropriate:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.  Romans 1:20

Well, regardless what it looks like, I harvested some and we're going to taste it soon. It is supposed to have a nutty, delicate taste most similar to cauliflower.  Although we haven't tasted it yet, I'm sure it will be "out of this world."