Category Archives: general

Growing Beets

Detroit Red Beet/ photo courtesy of seedsavers.org

Just like with Swiss chard, now is the time to plant beets. Beets  (or sugarbeet) take around 60 days from seed to maturity and should be given a spot in the garden where it can have time to grow because it takes some time to mature. You should plant them now in the spring and if you replant them in fall you can let them overwinter. It is a biennial that we grow as an annual to harvest the root. For more flavorful beets, grow them in cool conditions.There are many different types and coloring of beets from Golden, Bulls Blood Red, Chiogga, Detroit Red, Early Wonder and Cylindra to name a few. Bulls Blood Red is grown mostly for it’s beautiful red leaves that many people use in their salad greens.

I have to confess. Until a few years ago, I wasn’t a big beet fan. Perhaps it was because my mom gave us pickled beets or tasteless cooked beets from a can while I was a child (sorry mom). In her defense, we lived in a desert and back then it was hard to get fresh anything. So I wasn’t very enthusiastic about growing them. Then two things happen to change my mind about beets.

THING #1: One day a friend had me over for lunch and put roasted beets in with a lettuce salad and I was hooked. Beets get really sweet when roasted in an oven on low heat. They sorta get caramelized and are little nuggets of sweet.

THING#2: Two friends from Australia who are vegetarians came over for dinner one night and grated a raw beet and carrot on top of a lettuce salad. It was so bright and colorful and the raw beet had a wonderful flavor. We sprinkled feta cheese and sunflower seeds on it and dressed it with a balsamic vinaigrette. I loved it.

Growing Instructions:

-Beets like alkaline soil-ph between 6.7 to 7 which is great around here. They like a lot of organic material added to the soil. They require consistent moisture levels but can tolerate soils that are low in fertility.

-Beets can be started inside if you like or direct seed in early spring.

-Plant seeds every 1 inch, thinning to about every 4 inches after they are 4-5 inches tall to give them room to grow. Snip off the cuttings instead of pulling them to not disturb the remaining roots.

-For best flavor, beets like direct light and cool growing conditions which is perfect for a spring crop and fall crop. Put straw around base of plant in summer to keep roots cooler if you still have them.

-When harvesting, cut off the tops to within one inch and keep in refrigerator.

Chard choices

Bright lights/photo courtesy of cooksgarden.com

Now is the time to plant Chard or (Swiss chard or Silverbeet as it is called).  There are many types of chard and I would like to go over a few of them and my experience with them. Chard is a close relative of the beet and should be planted in the ground at the same time as beets which is now. It will sprout early and will not be harmed by spring frosts. Harvest the outer leaves first (usually in 4-6 weeks) and leave the center intact and it will keep growing and supply you with more throughout the summer season. It usually doesn’t flower until it’s second year-it is a biennial. For that reason, I replant it every year as it will put more effort into flowering in it’s second year and you won’t get as many big leaves. One planting will last the entire season and it will not ‘bolt’ in the heat of summer. I pull it up after the season as I rather it put all it’s energy into those big leaves. A great substitute for spinach which will be gone after spring.

Fordhook chard/photo courtesy of seedsavers.org

-The best chard I find to plant for fall/winter is Argentata which is very cold hardy even in our winter temperatures. It can withstand colder temperatures more than many other types of chard. You can get it at John Schweepers or Gourmetseed. It is a white variety with big juicy thick stems. Both the stems and leaves are delicious.

-Another great white variety is ‘Fordhook’ which is similar to Argentata and can be found at seedsaversexchange along with Rhubarb Red. You can plant this in the spring and enjoy it this summer.

I like 5-Color Silverbeet, and Bright Lights, for the multi-color varieties. The stems are not as thick and juicy as the white varieties but the color is to die for and I always plant some among the flowers to add additional color to the garden and they are good to eat as well.

Red Charlotte chard/photo courtesy of cooksgarden.com

I also like other red varieties in addition to Rhubarb Red mentioned above-Magic Red and Red Charlotte can be found at Cook’s Gardens

Try growing all these together and enjoy each one through the summer season!

I like to eat these chopped coarsely and steamed with a balsamic vinaigrette over them as a vegetable or sauteed in olive oil and put on pasta with butter along with some chicken and Parmesan cheese. Delicious!

Starting Giant Pumpkins, ‘Giant Greenie’ and Giant Marrow

I planted all the seeds for my ‘All Star Lineup’ of giant pumpkins, giant marrows and also new this year is a giant ‘greenie’ squash (think green pumpkin) and 2 long gourd on last Thursday, April 7.

Here is a picture of a Giant Green Squash-'Greenie'-not mine!

-For the pumpkin and greenie (giant green squash) seeds I filed the edges just a little so the seed can absorb water more readily to help it germinate. Then I planted them in a 4 inch peat pot about 2 inches deep pointed side down. For the Giant Marrow I just planted the seed point side down.

-I put all of them on the plant heating map to keep the soil warm for germination. They are in the light box and get watered every day. Hopefully they will all germinate.

Starting Long Gourds

My goal!

This year I’m going to try planting Long Gourds. I understand getting them to germinate is no easy feat. First I just nipped off the very tip of the seed and soaked it for 24 hours although I read you can soak for 8 hours. Then this morning I put the seeds between damp paper towels and in a ziploc baggie and put them on my heating mat to keep very warm. In a few days they will put out a root and I will put them in pots. Then they should germinate. Hopefully all will go to plan!

More cold weather coming

Better tie yourself to a tree!!!

I knew it was too good to be true.

I’ve lived here for 16 years now and you can’t fool me anymore. Just when you think we’re home free from the cold weather, Bamm! We get another cold front. When you say? On the weekend of course! Cold on Saturday and COLDER ON SUNDAY: 46° F for a high and 28°F for a low. Oh yea and lots of wind coming too. Big wind! 60 mph! Better tie yourself to a tree! Think I’ll go to the movies..

Shhh! Don’t Tell Anyone..

tea cups soaking seeds and pots with dirt-EEEEEK!

As a gardener, I try to do some things when I’m alone. Not that I don’t like company but planting seeds and transplanting seedlings up in new containers in the kitchen is dirty business. I mean literally.

Dirt in bucket in house

Yesterday was one of those days. The kitchen counters got potting soil all over them, dirt got tracked on the floor, there was a bucket of dirt in the house (for my soil sample test!), the kitchen table was full of pots and seeds and the kitchen sink had dirt in it (which I carefully scoop out so it didn’t go down the drain). I would of just died if the doorbell rang and some friend ‘popped’ in to visit and saw what a disaster I was in the middle of! But I always clean it up (with bleach!) before anyone comes and sees what a mess I made all day in the kitchen!

OMG! There's dirt in that sink!

By the time evening rolls around, it is spotless and nobody know any better! Shhh! Don’t tell anyone!

Apprenticing

The other day when Caleb, the beekeeper, brought his bees over, I mentioned that when I applied to the Santa Fe Farmers Market, it asked on the application if I want an apprentice and I checked off yes. So Caleb asked if he could be an apprentice and I said yes. We will have flex hours as we work for ourselves. Today he came over from 8:30-12:30. I really enjoyed working with Caleb.

First we took some soil samples from the giant pumpkin patch that I’m sending off to a lab in California to see what the soil might need. I’ll have to fill out the paperwork tomorrow and send it off. It looks pretty good but I’m anxious to see what the test says. Then I can figure out what amendments it will need.

Then we planted the giant pumpkin seeds, giant marrow seeds, some tomato seeds, transplanted some new tomato seedlings, soaked the long gourd seeds and made some tomato cages! Got a lot done in 4 hours.

RAIN! BLESSED RAIN!

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A break in the storm-views from the house

Well, it rained a little last night and a little today and boy we sure need it. Ahhh! It smells so good. I opened the windows to breathe it in!  We haven’t had rain for 60 days and it is dry, dry, dry. We are starved for moisture here in the Southwest while the Northwest has been getting soaked. That’s La Nina for you. The jet stream goes north and the storms miss us here in Santa Fe.

La Nina “continues to weaken,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said and neutral conditions for the U.S. are in sight by the end of June.

“As La Nina continues to wane, we can expect that rainfall over the drought regions of the southern U.S. will gradually return to normal levels by mid-summer,” said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and co-founder of Weather Underground.

I sure hope these forecasts of La Nina breaking down are true so we can get more rain, otherwise we will have a tough summer gardenwise and waterwise…

Over 10,000 visitors to giantveggiegardener blog!

Over 10,000 visitors to Giantveggiegardener’s blog! Thank you for showing up and checking it out! We are all in this gardening thing together! Growing our own food really puts us in touch with how to care for mother earth in a gentle, organic way and makes me more conscious about our limited resources. When I first started this blog, there would be days where I’d have few if any visitors and I felt like I was talking to the wind. I’m not alone! Again thanks for visiting and I hope you’ll come back for more!

How to Make Feta Cheese

Bahhhhhh!!!!! (photo South Mountain Dairy)

I make feta to go with my tomatoes from the garden. So how do you make feta? First you need to get some milk! I went to our farmers market on Saturday and got an 1/2 gallon of goat milk from South Mountain Dairy, a local dairy farm. I wanted to make goat feta. (Actually I would love to make sheep feta but I don’t know of any sheep farmers in this area-this is Baaad!).  Sheep or goat’s milk is used in traditional feta although cow’s milk is used now too. Sheep’s milk has the highest fat content, then goat’s milk and last cow’s milk. If you haven’t had sheep feta or any cheese made with sheep’s milk, do try some. It will be the smoothest, creamiest, most flavorful cheese you will ever taste.

Meanwhile here’s how to make goat feta. It was easy but it does take some time! It’s a perfect thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. I got the recipe from  two books I have,  ‘Home Cheesemaking’ by Ricki Carroll and the same recipe is in ‘Making Artisan Cheese’ by Tim Smith.  There is also a great feta cheese recipe at Fias Co Farm online. This recipe is for a GALLON of milk. Here’s how I did it (remember I used a 1/2 gallon of milk):

FETA CHEESE FOR ONE GALLON OF MILK (cut it in half for a half gallon of milk)-you can use goat or cow milk

INGREDIENTS

1 gallon whole goat or cow milk

1/4 teaspoon lipase powder (diluted in 1/4 cup water and allowed to sit for 20 minutes) lipase is optional but adds more flavor

1 packet direct-set mesophilic starter

1/2 teaspoon liquid rennet (or 1/2 tablet rennet tablet diluted in 1/4 cup cool unchlorinated water )

2-4 teaspoon cheese salt (or non idonized salt)

1/3 cup water, for brine (optional)

1/8 teaspoon calcium chloride diluted in 1/4 cup water (optional-use if curds aren’t setting firmly for next time)

DIRECTIONS:

Milk in pot. Duh! (photo Fias Co Farm)

1. Put your milk in a pan and stir diluted lipase in it. Heat the milk to 86°F (It doesn’t take but a couple of minutes). Use a thermometer for cooking. Add the starter (1 packet of mesophilic starter) in it and stir. Cover it and keep it at 86° for one hour for the milk to ripen.

2. Put 1/8 teaspoon of rennet in about 1/8 of a cup of water. Put the diluted rennet into the milk, stirring for several minutes. cover and let set at 86°F for one hour.

Cutting curd in squares-now we're getting somewhere! (photo Fias Co Farm)

3. After the one hour, it should be set firm. Cut the curd into 1/2 inch squares while in pan. Cut across from the first cuts to make squares. Let sit 20 minutes. More whey liquid will be released.

stir curds-gently! (photo Fias Co Farm)

4. Keep at 86°F and gently stir the curds for 20 minutes. This releases more whey and firms up the curds.

Drain curds in muslin

 

5. Pour the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin (you can get it here) which is finer than regular muslin.

drain curds for 4 hours (photo Fias Co Farm)

6. Tie the corners diagonally into a knot and hang the bag over the sink to drain for 4 hours. (undo the knot after 2 hours and turn over in the cloth and retie and hang for another 2 hours)

Remove feta from muslin

7. Untie the bag and remove muslin.

slice feta

8. Cut the curds into 1 inch slices.

Salt feta

9. Sprinkle with kosher salt and put in a airtight container and age for 4-5 days in the refrigerator. More whey will be released and the slices will get firmer (so you can crumble it later).

7. Put it in a airtight container and put in refrigerator for 4-5 days. Store in the refrigerator. Rinse before use to remove excess salt.

For a stronger flavor, make a brine solution by combining 1/3 cup salt and 1/2 gal of water. Place rinsed cheese in the brine and store in refrigerator for 30 days. (Use the brine solution for farm bought milk only, store bought tends to disintegrate in brine).

Afterwards, I took the remaining whey and made ricotta from it. I took the whey and put it in a pot and reheated it to just below boiling so it released more protein.  You can see the little particles separate from the liquid. I took that mixture and strained it in another muslin lined colander and let it drip for 15 minutes. Then I put it in a container and put it into the refrigerator. That’s it. You really don’t get much ricotta but you’re not wasting the whey either. The rest of the whey I will give to the chickens and later to some plants. Two cheeses in one day!

Goat Feta Cheese

 

GOAT=(cheese) + TOMATO = YUM!!!

Yesterday I made Feta cheese for the first time! Why am I putting it in a gardening blog? Tomatoes! I’m learning now so I can make some in TOMATO SEASON! I already learned Mozzarella last year and wanted to learn how to make Feta too as I like both these cheeses with tomatoes in the summer. I make a traditional Italian Caprese salad with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil with a balsalmic vingerette. The other salad I call a ‘Greek’ Caprese because I use crumbled feta cheese instead of mozzarella, and the rest of the ingredients the same. I like the saltiness of the feta with the tomatoes. In my next post I will show you how.

Winter Spinach Recovered from Rabbit Damage

Spinach eaten by rabbit (funny it didn't eat the stems)-March 13

Remember the severely eaten spinach I showed last month (March 13)? Now that the cold frame is repaired I can keep the rabbits out again.  No more feasting on my spinach! While the cold frame was damaged and open to rabbits, I kept some row cover over the damaged spinach and I held it down with rocks. The rabbits couldn’t get to it and the spinach made a glorious recovery! Had spinach and cheddar omelet yesterday with it! I should be able to get more meals out of the spinach as it is doing great and we have lots of time before the heat comes and it bolts.

Spinach recovers in less than a month

 

Coldframe repair

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I had to rebuild the top and one side of my coldframe as I left it open one day and the wind wrecked it. The new lid has turned out great and is much lighter than the previous lid. On the first lid I used 1/4 inch plexiglass for the clear top which made it really heavy to lift. So I went to Home Depot and got some lightweight clear corrugated polycarbonate panels that were more expensive than plain clear corrugated plastic panels. I hope they won’t get cloudy or streaked and they say they are almost unbreakable. We’ll see in our wind! I won’t leave it wide open again, that’s for sure!

Alien Martini Glasses

Alien Glasses and 'World's Largest Olives'

I can’t wait for the next martini party we go to! I can’t wait to have a martini after a long day in the garden this summer! We made 4 Alien martini glasses at our hot glass shop, Liquid Light Glass. I thought they’d be fun to drink out of!  This is an idea I’ve had for a long time and finally, Elodie Holmes, Cia Friedrich, and I made a few to try out. Cia and I made the alien heads, and then Elodie, Cia and I blow the goblet parts and put it all together. Here is a picture of two of the glasses with the ‘World’s Largest Green Olives’ I found at Trader Joe’s.

Here I am with my first martini out of the 'Alien Martini Glasses'

Now I’m not a gin martini drinker, but a vodka martini drinker myself. (I haven’t even started drinking it in this picture-I must be tired!) I got turned off to gin after, an ‘experience’ in college many moons ago.

Cats must come from an Alien Race!

I think cats, come from an alien race! I mean look at our cat, Chaka-she looks like an alien!

Now I know all you true martini drinkers cringe at us vodka martini drinkers but I contend (and I like my martini dirty-ooh, doubly bad!)) that gin is nothing more than vodka that has been infused! No you say? Not possible? Well, they both start out from ‘neutral spirits’. Vodka has all flavoring and coloring removed (unless you get one of the flavored ones) and gin has to be infused with juniper berries to be considered gin.

The main ingredient in gin is juniper berries (except for the alcohol)!

HMM! Did I say juniper berries? Now there’s an idea! Something to do after juniper allergy season here in Santa Fe with all those juniper berries! Here’s a fun article on making your own gin from jeffreymorgenthaler.com on ‘How to Make Your Own Gin Without a Still’. Ingenious—for all you adventurous types! Me? I’ll stick to my vodka martinis in my Alien martini glasses!

Bees!

Yea! Here is Caleb's top bar hive this morning

For 2 years I’ve been waiting for one of my beekeeping friends to bring over one of their hives but no one had any extra bees or top bar hive to bring. I’ve wanted bees to help with pollination in my veggie garden and thought what a great relationship that would bee. My friends get space to put their hive and I get pollinators.  I promise not to use chemicals that will harm the bees and will give them water. I didn’t think I would be interested in bees that much. I don’t want to take care of more things. I’m already overloaded. I just want pollinators and they can do the beekeeping thing. But still, I’ve wanted them.

closeup top bar hive this morning

So last week I was ecstatic when Caleb, a friend of mine, told me he would move his hive here to the garden area. Finally. Yea! I’ve been waiting with great excitement all week for him to come not quite knowing what to expect. Caleb is a 3 year beekeeper and I can tell by the way he talks about his bees that he’s good and he cares about them. Yea, like children-all 10,000 of them! (the hive will grow to around 50,000 this summer)

Yesterday afternoon he came over and scoped out the property to see where he wanted to keep his bees. He picked out a lovely site that was nestled in some trees facing southeast (that is the direction they want to fly out in the morning) plus they will get protection from the hot west sun and wind this summer. They would be within 50 feet of the vegetable garden. Excellent! He decided to put the top bar hive up on a stand he built. He dug a hole at the site and buried his stand so the top bar hive won’t blow away during our high wind periods. Then we had dinner and off he went to pick up his bees at sunset after they came home to the hive.

water for bees

While he was gone, I brought down a bowl of water and put some twigs halfway in it so the bees can walk down the twigs to get to the water. Caleb said you have to move bees at night because when they come out in the morning they will have to recalibrate their internal GPS so they can find the hive again by the end of day. He came back an hour after dark and he had the top bar hive with the bees inside covered with a towel in the back of his truck. They were upset about the bumpy ride on our dirt road. How do we know? Because they were LOUD! They were humming loudly and sounded upset-no actually they sounded pissed. Glad the towel was covering the hive. So he let them settled down and once they were quiet he picked up the box and with flashlights we took them to their new place.  After we got there and Caleb attached the top bar to the stand, a few bees came out just inside their entry hole to check it out but they stayed in. Wonder what the neighbors thought last night with us walking all over the property with flashlights carrying a coffinlike box! I’ll have to show them the bees!

First bee out on top of top bar hive exploring it's new surroundings

This morning was cold (about 38°F) so only a few of the bees came out to explore. While I’m working, they will come out when it is warmer. I hope they like their new property!

Later today, Caleb will come back and put up some plywood to protect the hive from rain (hah! fat chance of that) and he needs to put on their ‘porch’ that they like to land on when entering or leaving the hive. I wonder if bees have an air traffic controller for take offs and landings?! Perhaps they do have an air traffic controller. Perhaps our traffic controllers could learn a thing or two from their traffic controllers. I can see this is gonna be fun! I’m learning a lot from Caleb. Bees are fascinating creatures with an incredibly structured society. Caleb said they can follow the sun even when it is on the other side of the earth with their GPS-how cool is that?! Looks like I’m going to need a bee hood soon to learn more..