Harvest – The Salem Garden

There is so much going on in my head… happy things, sad things, things I just can’t understand and things that are perfect. Often times if I sit down and blog it all settles down and feels better. It’s amazing how cathartic blogging can be. I probably won’t even write about what I’m really wrestling with, but sharing my garden thoughts helps me put something in a place. I guess it gives me some control over at least a little part of it. Stream of conscious can be scary, can’t it? Okay, out to the garden….

Thank you all for your comments that helped us to identify Cindy’s Purple Shiso (Perilla frutescens nankinensis). I’ve never seen it growing here and it seems that my southern blogging friends were the most familiar with it, although my new friend Kathy at Witchcitygarden.com chimed right in too so it might grow around here. One of the very best aspects of gardening is learning new things, so thank you all for your help with that!

Let’s see, what else? I harvested lots of onions over the weekend.

Their curing and will be cleaned up and stored for the winter. I think we have enough to last until next spring as long as I don’t make huge vats of onion soup.

I also made five quarts of refrigerator pickles with our cucumbers and dill. If you have fresh cucumbers around you should really try these. Their quick and easy and no canning is required!

We spent quite a bit of time weeding and pruning. Michael did lots of edging so our beds look fresh and ready for the second half of the gardening season. I’m hoping to plant some more lettuce and Asian greens after I add fresh compost to the onion beds. The kids were busy playing in the neighborhood and hanging out with friends while we worked. Sometimes it all comes together.

We even did the Ice Bucket Challenge last night, right here in the garden! I tried to share the video, and to post it on The Salem Garden facebook page but something quirky was going on with facebook, google, gmail and wordpress. So, unless I magically figure it out you’ll just have to believe me. Michael and I dumped the ice water right over our heads in the middle of the zucchini and tomatoes! It was great, and of course we’ll make our donation to the ALS association.

I have another non-stop week ahead. We’re preparing for another family vacation, celebrating a twelfth birthday, welcoming a beautiful new baby to our extended family and praying for friends from church who lost their beloved granddaughter to cancer on Saturday. I have to remind myself to breathe. Hopefully I”ll pull more weeds and write another post.

Wishing you peaceful time in your gardens.

Love, Michele

It started out like this. I remember saying something like “there’s the horseradish” and going on to my next thought.

Yesterday I was cutting back and cleaning up the garden and realized that the horseradish had died back from the frost and was ready for harvest. I thought I’d pull some out for Michael to enjoy. I didn’t get the horseradish gene but he and my mom eat it like it’s candy. So I started digging, for at least an hour. Long story short, we have a lot of horseradish root out there and it’s buried very deeply. There will be horseradish on our property for many years to come.

Here’s what I was able to dig out. It was getting dark and I was tired. We had pizza for dinner.

… a view with my hand to give you a better sense of the size of this root.

I soaked it a little and washed the dirt off. My middle daughter, the Harry Potter fan, saw this and immediately went downstairs and put in the Harry Potter movie with Professor Sprout and the mandrakes and watched the whole thing, lol.

It looks like the large one is actually six roots that fused together. I might of missed it last year.

The smaller, normal size root was easily peeled and chopped.

Then I processed it with some water and red wine vinegar.

And my Michael was happy.

He doesn’t smile like this for just anything.

The larger root is still sitting on my counter. I think that I’m going to try to cut it into smaller pieces and freeze it to grate later since the refrigerated version only lasts for up to six weeks.

Looking forward to a nice horseradish cream sauce with the roast beef on Christmas Day 🙂

Enjoy everything!

Michele

Tag Archives: Harvest

Sort of a Stream of Conscious Garden Post

Now THIS is Horseradish….