Hopi Red Dye Amaranth

You know you're obsessed with food when it keeps you awake at night. I tossed and turned most of last night with a racing mind contemplating all of the new things I want to try in next year's food garden. Sometimes my mind is so abuzz with crazy thoughts and ideas that it's impossible for me to catch even a wink of sleep. I have to remind myself to stay focused on this year and save thoughts of the next for those impending winter months that will soon be upon us.

One of the plants that has been on my mind of late is the Hopi Red Dye Amaranth that we are growing solely for its seed this year with the hope of raising it as a viable grain source next summer. The flowers of this type of amaranth were used by Hopi Indians as a source of red dye. Seeds or grain of various amaranth are much higher in protein (12-17%) than most other grains making it a valuable source of nutrition. Along with our Hopi seeds I will hopefully be able to purchase Orange Giant, an amaranth that reportedly puts out almost a pound of seed per plant and maybe one other type - Plainsman a short season productive variety that I am still researching.


Our goal is to grow enough to make a more traditional Mexican tortilla in place of the wheat ones we now consume, that and homemade pasta. The grain can even be popped (a couple tablespoons at a time so as not to burn it) like popcorn causing the grain to expand to about five times its size. Popped, it can then be eaten as a cold cereal or cooked without popping for a hot cereal. The seeds, like flax, can be used as a thickening agent for certain soups and stews and the young leaves added to salads bring nutrition and color to the plate. We are even thinking of using it to make some sort of homemade power bar using honey and dried fruit...stay tuned.

Next year we will dedicate a couple 4x60' rows to this plant as a test to see just how much grain can be produced. In addition to being a precious food source its beauty alone is beyond compare. The red tassels will even grow back if you are lucky enough to be able harvest the seed early on.

A closeup of this morning's popped amaranth

Splendor, Pigs, and Berries

Last Monday found us escaping the garden for a day spent trekking into the mountains foraging for wild berries. We were lured up to the enchanting Snow Lake, one of our favorite high mountain haunts this time of year. This part of the Selkirk mountains is still remote enough to be officially designated as grizzly bear habitat. We were even able catch a couple of bears on film in this area a couple years back.

The huckleberries were beyond numerous as we spent a couple hours picking the heavily laden bushes around the lake. I think we were out for around seven hours and did not see another living sole not even a bear, what a treat. Sometimes it is nice to feel as if you have the mountains all to yourself.

My wife peeking through a remnant of the Great Burn of 1910 that ravaged much of north Idaho and parts of Montana

Besides all the huckleberries we also found Twinberries, a variety of honeysuckle who's yellow spring flowers are later replaced with a pair of shiny black oblong berries protruding from brilliant red bracts. We find these berries to be very sweet with an almost jelly like texture. Apparently they are deliciously edible if eaten in the mountains of the northern states but have been reported to be very bitter in other areas of the U.S.


We saw a type of Pink Flowering Currant (I think that is what they are called) growing everywhere, we just call them blue currants. They have an enjoyable flavor that is hard to describe, not in any way similar to the a common garden currant.


There were Black Swamp Gooseberries also called Prickly Currants that have shiny dark clusters of hairy berries adorning their thorny stems and are not nearly as pleasing to the palate as the aforementioned berries...actually they are quite disgusting, but nonetheless edible.


The Black Elderberries are also unpleasant when eaten raw but very tasty when added with ground cherries to some of our favorite baked squash dishes. Interestingly enough, when we were at the lake I swear these elderberries looked black, but my pictures reflect an almost maroon colored berry...perhaps they are red elderberries.


Our berry picking adventure was pristine and beautiful, but not devoid of the traces of man. It's too bad that we have to spend precious time filling our packs with the refuse of those who hold no regard for the land...filthy pigs.

My wife picking up after the thoughtless slobs that last occupied this area

The next day we made a wonderful hucklegrape syrup and a surprisingly thick huckleberry jam. For the syrup and jam we used apples for pectin and and a little honey for sugar, they both turned out great...our very first canned fruit preserves. Yay for us!

Healthy, natural, huckleberry jam fresh from the mountains of northern Idaho

A Chill is in the Air!

We have been diligently preparing for fall and a big part of that involves the harvest and preservation of food still in the gardens. According to the notes I have taken over the years we have until sometime between the 15th and 25th of this month to harvest all tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, eggplants, and other weather sensitive crops. Hard frost often creeps into the garden around early October but sometimes we get light frosts as early as mid September. After the 15th any tomatoes left on the vine, which will be less then half of them this year, will be picked to ripen indoors. Normally we only get about 30-40 percent of them to ripen on the vine so if only half are green that is good. Honestly though, most of the green tomatoes that we ripen indoors are every bit as good as the vine ripened ones and much easier to handle.

Burstyn

So we have started picking and canning the tomatoes as they ripen and yesterday I hauled in another batch for the next few days canning adventures...if I ever finish with the tomatillos. In the past we have always frozen our tomatoes but this year we are giving basic water bath canning a go...a first for us. So far so good as nothing has exploded or erupted! If all goes well we will end up with 20 quarts and 45 pints for soup and sauce. That's not going to make much of a dent in the tomato population this year so I suppose we will have to be creative with the rest. That makes my wife happy as she will have unlimited access to dried tomatoes this year...one of our favorite winter salad toppings.

The other day someone was kind enough to explain the many benefits of owning a pressure canner to me, and I think she's right. Perhaps we will buy ourselves one for Christmas and have many more canning choices available to us next year.

A few of our canned goods sitting in the dungeon/root cellar

I grew a large variety of tomatoes this year with the hope of whittling down my favorites...unfortunately I like them all for various reasons. So next year I will probably continue with my usual "fly by the seat of my pants" method of gardening and just go by feel, and that usually means we plant everything.:)

Targinnie Red

The Mexican Sour Gherkin

They look like miniature watermelons and taste like sour little cucumbers. We started growing these about 3 years ago as a novelty that adds a little pizazz to our salads. The sour little fruits get about 1-2" long and the vines readily climb any trellis provided. I have not tried it but they are supposed to be excellent pickled and will store fresh for a surprisingly long time.

The vines alone are a very lovely addition to the garden

The Birds and the Bees

Upon occasion I awake thinking that I will be accomplishing a certain task for the day but end up consumed with everything but the originally scheduled assignment, actually more often than not. A late afternoon set aside for thinning winter garden rows and freezing peppers became an effort to wrest raspberries from wasps and amaranth seed from a flock of voracious birds.


As the second and larger crop of raspberries and strawberries start to appear on our ever bearing plants we are once again involved in the daily harvest of berries. We had not been paying too much attention to the raspberries of late but were well aware the fruit was close to being ready. I happened to take notice of them yesterday afternoon and could see that enough were ripe to be worth the effort of picking. I was hoping to get away with waiting one more day to pick as we had other chores that needed tending, but unfortunately we were not the only ones to notice that the berries were ready. A closer inspection revealed that every wasp and bald-faced hornet in the vicinity were also well aware that my berries were starting to ripen.

I have a love/hate relationship with the various types of wasps that occupy our property. On one hand they do a great service in that they eat harmful flies, caterpillars, aphids, and other insects that can be destructive to the garden. On the other hand they have quite the sweet tooth, competing with the bees for nectar and us for our fruit towards the end of summer. Hungry wasps are more likely to be a nuisance in late summer as the colony has grown exponentially and is in a frenzy to collect food, often searching out ripe fruit and other sweet things like the family barbecue.

A Bald-faced hornet nest hanging in a cedar tree next to our raspberry patch.


Normally, I leave the nests undisturbed simply taking note of where they are located, be that underground, in the above trees, or the barn and greenhouse. The small nests in the greenhouse are a great teaching tool for my grandson to learn all about various wasps and bees. He is able to watch and learn up close. I have taught him how to carefully pet the back of a bumble bee in order to see the difference in the nature of the mostly docile bee compared to the much more aggressive wasp and hornet. Late last fall he got to pick apart dormant yellow jacket and mud-dauber wasp nests, and has sat with me quietly observing as bustling bald-faced hornets moved to and fro feeding the larvae in the above nest. He has a nice little bee book that teaches him all about the mysterious inner workings of the hive and is most fascinated by the insects.

Anyway, in order to reclaim my raspberries before the wasps devoured them all "I" had to get in the patch and pick amongst them, shaking the bushes as I went along in order to dislodge any wasps that had burrowed into the berries. More often then not my wife or I end up getting stung while picking this time of the year. For the most part the wasps are as interested in the fruit as I am and we all work together trying to see who can gather the most fruit, and as long as they don't get poked in the rear with my finger they simply move around us as we pick.

This valerian plant was host to a multitude of seed hungry birds.

That same afternoon I noticed a flock of small birds hanging around my seedy valerian, Belgium endive, and amaranth plants. It didn't take long for me to realize what they were up to. Luckily, I have already collected all the valerian seed I need but had yet to focus on the amaranth and endive. So between having to unexpectedly harvest berries and seeds my afternoon was spent. Tomorrow morning I will tackle the peppers and thin my winter rows...I hope.

Giant Cape Gooseberries?

Deep in the murky recesses of my mind I am forever calculating how much foodstuff we need to produce. Trying to figure out how often we eat a certain food item in order to determine what I need to grow, or gather, in order to meet our year end harvest goals. I always try to grow a little more than we should need in order to be assured of having enough. For example, we use tomatillo salsa approximately once every week and have to rely on frozen tomatillos for around 5 months out of the year. If we are lucky, the first new tomatillos ripen in July and the last ones are picked towards the end of September and can be stored fresh all the way until the first part of January. Each plant will provide us with around 2 gallons of tomatillos, often more sometimes less. So I grow at least 6 or 7 plants each year. Our objective being to freeze around 24 quarts to supplement those that are eaten fresh.

Tomatillos dehusked, washed, and ready to be made into salsa.

This year I inadvertently grew around 13 plants. "Why so many Mike?" you might ask. "That sure seems like and awful lot, do you sell tomatillos?" Well yes and no, we did sell quite a few plants this spring but had no intention of selling the fruits themselves. I accidentally grew 6 extra plants in our garden because I thought they were going to be Cape Gooseberries. You see, I thought that when I purchased Giant Cape Gooseberries from the reputable "Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds" they would produce a large orange form of ground cherry. But alas, my winter fantasies of beautiful orange gooseberries "New Acquaintances In The Garden" were realized in the form of big green tomatillos. As the seeds look so much alike I am not all that upset, well maybe a bit perturbed, but more amused than anything as I wonder how many other customers ended up with unusually large green Cape Gooseberries.:) Mistakes happen. Although, Mrs. H. is not as forgiving and has threatened to give them a piece of her mind. I desperately need all the pieces of my mind so I will leave that matter in her capable hands.

The first of a large crop of tomatillos.

That said, we are looking at quite a surplus of tomatillos...not a bad dilemma to have. We picked and froze around 1/3 of our tomatillos and are only a few quarts shy of our target amount. So if I appear a little on the green side this year it's not that my health is failing but that I have been a bit of a glutton with the salsa. Oink, oink.

Slightly sweeter Purple Coban tomatillos

Tomatillos will store in their husks for around 2 months at 35 - 45°, the smaller ones even longer. When overly ripe they will turn yellow and become very sweet. We are going to try slicing and drying a few of them in this stage for the first time this year...maybe they will be good that way. Faced with a overabundance I might as well perform a little experimentation, you know.

If you ever want to save the seed off a tomatillo or ground cherry, just toss a few really ripe ones in your blender (or mash them) with a little water. Give them a whirl and then dump the contents into a small bowl. The good seeds will sink to the bottom and the rest of the pulp can be carefully poured off leaving the seeds. I remove mine with a butter knife and spread onto a drying screen for a few days until they are ready to be put away for the next season. The most important part is to not get them mixed up with your gooseberry seeds.:)

The Pea Dance

Time spent in our food gardens during the next 40-50 days will, for the most part, be spent working towards the harvest of numerous crops. Some of the food we grow has already been processed and stored away for the winter months: kale for soup, basil and other herbs, many of our berries, garlic, shallots, and so on. The rest of our winter fare is, or will soon be in some stage of being processed. The end goal being to have our freezers, root cellar, and dried items at capacity in order to be secure in the knowledge that we will have more then enough food to last us through until the next growing season.

One of the items we are working on finishing up are our dry soup peas. A few gallons of peas are frozen but the majority are dried on the vine for easier storage. Nothing beats a big bowl of pea soup and cornbread for dinner, especially when it's cold out. We always save 2-3 years worth of the best peas for the following years crop. This is done so that if next years peas need to be replanted, or fail to produce viable seeds due to bad weather or other issues we will have enough. The rest are stored in gallon jars until needed for food purposes.

These boxes contain a few of our carefully separated seed peas.

Normally we process these legumes a little at a time as they dry on the vine, but sometimes we end up with a large amount at once. One of the ways we remove the shells from the peas not being used for seed is called the "pea dance." Our pea dance involves stomping on the dry seed pods in order to break them up and release the peas. This year we used our grandson, clad in sterile cowboy boots, and a small clean children's wading pool for the procedure. One bucket of peas at a time is dumped in and tromped on by him until the majority are released from their confines. We then separate the chaff by hand or thresh it through a screen. This has been a great way to incorporate our grandson into this end of season activity. The biggest issue was teaching him to tromp carefully so the peas stay in the pool...such a good lad.

Evolution of a Carrot

One of the rewards of saving your own seed is being able to watch the process from start to finish, the plants evolution if you will. I am always amazed as I watch various plants develop seeds. Each one with the same goal of procreating, but with vastly different modes of delivery.


Interestingly enough, one of the more unusual seeds I am saving this year comes from a very common vegetable...the carrot. Your average carrot, being a biennial plant, has to be overwintered before it will produce viable seed, unless it bolts like some of my Lunar White ones did...a little too hot this summer. I held over and replanted my best carrots so they could finish their life cycle and provide us with seeds for the next generation of carrots in our garden.

After the carrot flower is pollinated by insects, it forms into a rounded umbel.

Carrot seeds, and many seeds for that matter, from one's own garden are slightly different then the ones cleaned and shipped out by the seed companies. Having flowered, the carrots spiny little seeds form atop an umbel that eventually dries at which point the seed is ready to be harvested.

The dried umbels eventually break off and blow away in the wind as a tumbleweed, dispersing seeds as they roll along.


Each individual flower produces a pair of seeds, the below carrot seeds are really two seeds slightly attached.