We love parsnips for their ethereal, rooty sweetness. But they are not an easy vegetable. First, they can be tough to get out of the ground. The roots sometimes go very deep. One of the parsnips I harvested this morning was 20 inches long.
Parsnips are also slow. In fact, they are best eaten a year [...]
Entries Tagged as 'spring'
Time to Harvest Parsnips & Burdock
March 20th, 2010 · 1 Comment · garden
Get ‘Em Before They Bolt!
March 17th, 2010 · No Comments · garden
First thaw brings a minor miracle to the garden: the greens we planted last fall are bouncing back.
Mizuna, mustard, collards, tat soi. They are soaking up the sun and putting on new growth. But not for long. After their long winter nap, what these plants want to do is replicate. So they quickly elongate and [...]
More Signs of Spring
March 7th, 2010 · No Comments · kids
This was the scene yesterday entering the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden ice rink on the mall here in the District of Columbia. Notice the grass.
And here’s the same view January 24, following our historic snowstorm. What a difference a few weeks makes.
Daughter and friends got up early for skating and needed a hearty breakfast. So we headed [...]
First Tomatoes
June 14th, 2009 · No Comments · garden
May 2009, with eight inches of rain, was the sixth wettest on record here in the District of Columbia. There were times we weren’t sure we were going to have a harvest this season. The eggplants are still a bit stunted. We’ve seen rot on the squashes. But the tomatoes have not been deterred. It [...]
Squash Are Happening
June 5th, 2009 · 5 Comments · garden
I had already spent the better part of a day weeding when, crawling on all fours, I happened upon this scene just above ground level. It looked like a garden diorama, deep inside an heirloom Italian squash plant, where blossoms and newly formed squash composed themselves into a luminous still life on their bed of straw mulch. [...]
Tags: flowers·spring·vegetables
Potatoes On Steroids
May 30th, 2009 · 1 Comment · garden
We think of potatoes mostly baked and slathered in sour cream or whipped with a big pat of butter. But they start out as a plant. And this time of year the potato plants are making a show of blooming in the garden.
You have to look farily closely to see the blossoms. But our local [...]
More Green Beans
May 21st, 2009 · 2 Comments · Blog, garden
I had to make a sudden switch in my garden planting scheme this year after I decided to stop eating starchy carbohydrates. I had ordered a variety of favorite legumes–cranberry beans, black-eyed peas, peanuts–and realized there was no point taking up valuable garden space with them if we didn’t plan to eat them. Instead, I [...]
Tags: brassicas·spring·vegetables
Attack of the Bees?
May 17th, 2009 · No Comments · Blog
It started just as groups of Leigh Hauter’s CSA subscribers were arriving at the farm for the Saturday tours. A distant, low buzzing noise at first. But then growing louder, and louder–nearer and nearer–turning into a roar.
Tens of thousands of bees were approaching, pouring out of their hive, circling in the air until they formed [...]
Tags: bees·local farming·spring
The Techie’s Garden
May 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Blog
Back in April I asked readers how they go about keeping garden records. Being of the last century, my own method is to jot things in a spiral-bound notebook with a pencil. Along came Amelia Showalter explaining how she puts an Excel spreadsheet and her Iphone to use while tending her vegetables. I asked if [...]
Better Burger, No Bun
May 14th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Blog, dinner
Did you say meatless Mondays?
Hell no. Not in this house. We are firm believers that humans were designed to eat meat, and we get ours pasture-raised from our dairy, South Maintain Creamery, in Middletown, MD. The ground beef we use for burgers (it’s delivered, just like the milk and other dairy products) is a bit [...]
Tags: beef·carbohydrates·cheese·fats·greens·insulin·meat·pastured·spring
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, one mile from the White House.
