Whee, seed catalogs!

[altivo]

Faced with a forecast of up to seven inches more snow to fall overnight, I chose to bury my muzzle in the seed catalogs and order vegetable seeds. This is, after all, the traditional time of year for it. One of my old standard suppliers had sent a coupon for $20 off any order, even if your order is less than $20. It was due to expire this week, so I used it.

I'm doing the vegetable garden this year. Gary hasn't let me do it for several years because he wanted it his way, but the last two years he just hasn't gotten around to it. I want my tomatoes and lettuce. So, for a total of $7 plus shipping after the discount, I am getting: purple brussels sprouts, mustard greens, arugula, lettuce blend (4 varieties), okra (yum, you can't buy that around here), kohlrabi (you can't buy enough of it here), butternut squash, hot pepper mixture (multiple varieties), red beets, pole beans, slicing and cherry tomatoes. *drools* We have seeds dated from just last year for zucchini, snow peas, chard, and turnips.

Now if it will just stop snowing...

Comments

[tinbender.livejournal.com]

With seven inches of snow coming you should be able to plant the snow peas ;)

Can't hardly beat that deal. That's a lot of veggies for $7+. Isn't kohlrabi a really strange looking vegetable?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, kohlrabi and okra are among the weirdest.

I remember my introduction to kohlrabi, when I lived in Michigan. A couple of colleagues were discussing things to grow in the garden, and it was brought up. One of them was a Latvian immigrant and didn't recognize the word. She kept trying to figure out what vegetable was being discussed. Then the American said "Oh, you know, they look like little green sputniks," and Irmgard immediately gave the Latvian name and said "Of course, that's perfect."

I've always liked them cooked with a sweet and sour sauce rather like German potato salad, but in recent years we discovered that they are very sweet and tender enough to use raw in salad.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Can you explain how to cook Okra without it turning to wallpaper paste?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

1. Don't boil it.
2. Don't boil it.
...
1,000,001. Don't boil it.

I'll post a sample recipe or two when I get home tonight. Think Cajun/Creole cooking, in a dish with rice, other vegetables, and possibly shrimp or chicken. The okra is washed, trimmed of stem ends, and sliced crossways. You add it only for the last few minutes so that it is just steamed enough to become a bit more tender.

It also works well in stir fry dishes, prepared the same way. It's very important that it be fresh and not quite mature. The mature pods become extremely tough and woody.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

1. Don't boil it.

Ah..you are familiar with the goo-of-death then. :)

I will try stir frying them. I do stir frys a fair bit.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. I refer to it as "okra snot" and it's totally disgusting. Boiling brings it out in amazing quantities, but it seems to require water to produce it. Hence stir frying or light steaming doesn't make it in such quantities. Do slice the pods crosswise. They cook more quickly, so they have less time to goo up, and they look quite handsome that way.

We like okra particularly in spicy dishes. It's not a typical ingredient of Indian curries and such, but seems quite at home when tossed in there.

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Disagree with that actually. I like boiled okra, and the "goo" isn't a problem unless you let it sit instead of eating it immediately. granted it has a slimy texture to it, but still it's not bad. -Properly- fried okra beats all though.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

But you were raised in the south and are used to it. To us furriners it's pretty gross. ;p

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Eh, fair enough I suppose. you may have said this, but you can also steam it. Doing so minimizes the release of the gelatinous compounds.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I really like it stir-fried with rice and other veggies.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Noooo...keep your snow! Every time it snows there, it snows here a day later! It's you! You're making it! *insert maniacal laugh here*

*flips through his ACME weather-machine catalog*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hah. The snow you've got a watch on for isn't ours. You'll have to blame Kentucky and Oklahoma for it. The one they were blatting about here yesterday never materialized.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nya-ha-ha! It's snowing here. They actually cancelled the snow advisory, though Wisconsin still has it and they are just a few miles north of us. We had a half inch or so overnight, but it's coming down hard right now.

Still, looking at the entire weather map, the winter storm warning where you are is related to something else. The pink track runs across from Oklahoma to New England and passes way south of us. What we have could be totally separate in origin or just the edge of that.

Id love to do that here....

[bladehorse.livejournal.com]

Buuuut the damn herbivores with super launching springs find anything remotely green and eat them to the ground. (aka Deer) Locals that try tend to box the entire garden in wire even overhead, as a 10'fence seems to be near their upper launching hight. Them and the gophermongers that are trying to kill even my last redwood... Sigh
Good deal on the discount BTW !!

Re: Id love to do that here....

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We've had a terrible time with the deer chewing on our apple trees, but mostly they've left the veggies alone. The culprits in the garden are the groundhogs or woodchucks, raccoons (we gave up on trying to grow sweet corn,) and various insects who hatch into disgusting plant-eating caterpillars. I won't use pesticides, but we've learned some of the organic gardening tricks that seem to help.

Re: Discouraging deer

[altivo.livejournal.com]

BTW, The latest advice here is to use plastic netting to make a tent over the garden. It's cheap and light, sold to keep birds out of cherry trees and strawberry beds. You stake down the edges and stretch it over a framework. The deer don't like the feel of it, and it looks solid enough to discourage them even though they could rip right through it if they tried very hard.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

We've thought a couple of times about having a garden on the deck/roof here. I don't think the building owner would be too happy if we hauled a lot of dirt up here though. So I'm going to have to be creative. :)

My mom always has a great garden every year though. Those big beefsteak tomatoes and fresh cucumbers make the most delicious sandwich.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You can probably get away with containers. Find some plastic tubs or something. Don't try to grow beefsteak tomatoes, though. Look at the smaller, determinate varieties like Patio or Better Girl. Hot peppers grow well in containers, and so do bush beans. Leaf lettuce will grow almost anywhere.

*snicker*
Now you have me thinking of the first episode of the old "Green Acres" television series, where Oliver planted vegetables on a New York City balcony. His book said the tomatoes should be placed 24 inches apart, so he spaced the pots apart using a tape measure...

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Good for you, and just pennies per serving!

^_^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Pennies and a lot of sweat equity. That's the trouble with gardening. The mosquitoes, the sun, the aggressive bees (well, when there were six beehives next to the garden but those are gone now,) the woodchucks, the tomato hornworms (eeeew!)

But... when we have a good garden, we get to eat stuff we would never have otherwise because of the cost, like home made gazpacho. *drools more* And "garbage" pizza, piled high with veggies, which is my favorite kind.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Oh stop it, you know you like the feel
of loam and fresh dirt in you hand, the
sense of accomplishment, the very things
that make having that dinner, or simple
soup worth it all when you put that spoon
in your maw.

^.~

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well actually, I'm not fond of getting dirt under my nails. But I do like watching things grow and waiting impatiently for them to ripen. And then I feel bad about ripping them out by the roots or whatever. Gary grew rutabagas one year and couldn't bring himself to harvest them because they got so big and he wanted to see how big they could grow. The answer is too big. Some were nine inches in diameter, but all were tough as wood by then.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

NINE INCHES!

Good gawd!

*facepaws*

*takes your hoof and gently puts dirt on
it*

C'mon, be like the cool kids, get dirty...

^_^

Cool kids?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hah. Today's "cool kids" not only don't grow vegetables, they don't eat them except maybe for potatoes. They don't know how to cook and are proud of that. They live off fast food, junk food, and pizzas (frozen or delivered.) They don't read because that's uncool too. Their lives are shaped by media and videogames, literally. Nothing outside of those environments is important unless it tries to get in the way of the media access and the videogames.

I've never been one of the cool kids. I quit even thinking about being one decades ago.

Re: Cool kids?

[saythename.livejournal.com]

*holds your hoove in a bowl of dirt and
listens to you and nods*

"We have a thingy that puts dust in your tail
too..."

*ducks*

Re: Cool kids?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I have a better use for my tail than that.

*swats*

Re: Cool kids?

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Honestly I never was a "cool" kid either and by the time I
understood what "cool" meant I learned that it was a code word
for "conformity" and all the "rebels" all yelled the same
slogans and wore the same clothes and...I'd rather get my
fingers dirty. Heres a trowel, lets plant 'maters...

Re: Cool kids?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Um, we'd best wait to even start the tomato seeds indoors until probably April. This is the time for pruning the fruit trees, while they're sound asleep. Trouble is, the snow is so deep now I can't find the trees...

Re: Cool kids?

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Your so literal about things!

Its endearing.

^_^

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Zucchini and snow peas :) Yum yum

What's Chard?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Chard is beet greens. Often called "Swiss chard," it's just beets selected for growing large leaves rather than roots. The variety I like to grow has rainbow colored leaves and stems, red, green, yellow, and white.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Is that the same thing as Cos?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nope. Cos is a lettuce, also called "romaine". Crunchy, faintly sweet, and not at all strong flavored.

Chard is tougher, almost rubbery, and seldom if ever eaten raw. It has quite a strong flavor of its own. I know in England "beets" usually refers to the greens while "beet root" refers to the round red root. Here in America, "beets" is the root, and "beet greens" are the leaves. So I'm not sure how you classify them in Oz. Chard is really the same species of plant as the beet, though. It was just selected to grow more leaves and almost no root.