Preserved and Preserving

It's almost mid-July and the summer gardens are off to a fair albeit rocky start. We have had to take some pretty drastic measures to assure a good harvest for this season...more on that in a subsequent post. Some things are going quite well for us though. For instance, we are still eating and enjoying last year's squash,

beets, potatoes and carrots. The carrots are starting to taste a bit bland but everything else has retained it's flavor quite well.

Micki just finished sorting through our garlic and she came up with more than enough good cloves to see us through until our August harvest. We also have plenty of canned goods left in the pantry although we are out of pickles. I miss my pickles and hope to have the chance to can many more this fall than I did previously.

We have been busy harvesting kale, bunches of kale. Each one of these large ugly orange tubs, bought on sale after Halloween last year for almost nothing, equates to only 3 quarts of blanched and frozen greens, hard to believe, but true. So far we have 15 quarts frozen and will be satisfied once we harvest about 5 more. Mostly, we use these greens for kale and potato soup during the winter months when the fresh ones are harder to come by and I think this winter is going to be a doozy so we are putting up a bit extra. Which reminds me that I will need even more than that as it is also a vital ingredient in our homemade dog food.

Kale is an excellent green for freezing. We blanch them for a couple-three minutes, cool in ice water, wring them out like a rag, spread out on a towel to dry a bit more, mix with a hint of olive oil and pack into freezer bags.

Yesterday I picked a good gallon and half of strawberries which we also froze. Most of our plants have been thinned out and transplanted this year to various locations throughout the garden, considering all the abuse they have received I am happy to see them all starting to fill out with berries...lots of berries. We grow an extremely hardy ever bearing plant that needs no winter cover and on a good year will provide three crops of berries the last two being smaller in number than the first but with much bigger berries. I suspect that these particular strawberries are actually a "day-neutral " variety that, unlike prolific June-bearing strawberries, will continuously produce fruit anytime the temperatures are above freezing and the sun is still shining, often well into October. Lack of water and weeds are their primary enemies.

Our walking onions are filling out with nice little clusters of bulblets on top of their stems. Either end can be eaten but normally the bulblets are used for new onions and the in-ground bulbs for eating. They are often called "Egyptian" walking onions because they tend to become top heavy, fall over, and replant themselves. Honestly, I'm still not sure what any of this has to do with Egypt? Ever since a friend sent us some a couple years ago we have been busy growing them out in order to enlarge our patch. I can't begin to explain how fascinating I find this particular type of crazy allium, sometimes I just sit there and look at them shaking my head in wonder.


Last but not least our strawberry spinach plants are doing quite well, they seem to flourish come hell or high water, growing and producing regardless of the weather. Although the little "Malt-O Meal" flavored berries are much sweeter if they have adequate water and sunlight. The flavorless leaves on this plant are high in vitamins (especially C and A) and along with the the berries are a great addition to any salad. Be aware that once planted they do tend to readily and vigorously re-seed themselves. I would love to know more about the nutritional benefits of the berries themselves if anyone ever runs across any information?