Recipe: Celeriac Coleslaw

This recipe is an adaptation from Mireille Guiliano's recipe for Celery Root Remoulade from her book "French Women Don't Get Fat."

Ingredients:

• celeriac (celery root)
• lemon
• 2 T diced cornichons
• 1 t coarse-grain mustard
• 2 T mayonnaise
• 1 T red wine vinegar
• 1 t lemon juice
• 2 T minced parsley
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Peel the celeriac and liberally apply lemon juice to prevent browning of exposed root tissue. Coarsely grate.

In a bowl, combine cornichons, mustard, mayonnaise, vinegar, lemon juice, and parsley. Toss in grated celeriac. Season with salt and pepper.

Variety Recommendations: Tomatoes, Onions, Leeks, and Cucumbers

A comfortable chair, a mug of tea, and a couple of seed catalogs- these are the winter highlights. Each year, I plan on starting a mixture of old, trusted stand-bys and new varieties. Dreams of gardening splendor.

The performance, including taste, yield, and pest resistance, of a variety is dependent on its environmental conditions, for instance, soil type, rainfall, irrigation, sun exposure etc. Heirloom vegetable varieties are selections from a plant breeder, gardener, or farmer that are usually site and trait specific. A great resource for learning about heirlooms and seed-saving is the Seed Savers Exchange. For heirloom variety recommendations, Slow Food USA has a list, the Ark of Taste, with descriptions and links to seed sources. Bonus! They have a list of the varieties by region, which is incredibly helpful for selecting heirlooms that will work well in your climate.

The List:

Tomatoes: Juliet and Sungold. Juliet is a small roma or saladette tomato that is prolific, disease-resistant, and a must-have for the garden. The other variety that I plant every year is 'Sungold', a delicious, fruity, orange cherry tomato. Caution: the fruits crack after a heavy rain. Watch the weather and harvest before a rain or thunderstorm.

Onions: 'Redwing' is a red storage onion that I continue to grow year after year because of its consistent performance. In 2013, I planted two varieties of yellow storage onions, 'Copra' and 'Dakota Tears'. I preferred the strong top and bulb growth of 'Dakota Tears' over 'Copra' this season. I've been growing 'Copra' for a number of years and have found it to be a reliable variety. This is the first year for 'Dakota Tears'. I'm curious to see how it performs over several seasons.

Leeks: Bleu de Solaize successfully germinated in the low tunnels last winter and was ready to harvest by late April. This variety develops long, slender shanks. The key to growing leeks with plenty of white, edible shank is to create a furrow about 6 inches deep and plant the seedlings into this furrow. Over the course of the growing season, rain and irrigation events wash the soil into the furrow. No hilling necessary!

Cucumbers: Last season, I trialed three varieties: 'Calypso', 'Super Zagross', and 'Poona Kheera' from Fedco seeds. In 2012, the cucumber plot was heavily infested with cucumber beetles. Based on observations of defoliation and disease levels, 'Poona Kheera' was the most resistant compared to 'Super Zagross' and 'Calypso'. The fruits of 'Poona Kheera' change in skin color and texture from a milky white to yellow and then a beautiful russet-brown. Even at the later stages of maturity, the fruits remain sweet not bitter. This variety performed well in the hot, dry beetle-infested 2012 season and the cool, wet disease-ridden 2013 season.

Seed Catalogs- the True Gift of the Season

The best part of the winter holiday season is the arrival of this year's seed catalogs. Right when day length is diminishing and my tea consumption is rising exponentially, the best seed catalog that I have ever read arrives in the mailbox, the Fedco Seeds catalog. Am I biased? Absolutely. I read this catalog cover to cover multiple times during my daily bus commute.

Fedco Seeds is a cooperative owned by its employees and grower members in Clinton, Maine. In my opinion, the seed selection and price can't be beat for vegetable, flower, and herb growers. They offer volume discounts and accept group orders. In addition, if you are looking for an eco-friendly school fundraiser, they offer a seed packet selection for fundraising!

Each catalog is chock full of growing resources and information. Each crop, where applicable, is divided into at least two sections with hybrid and open-pollinated varieties for the seed-saving enthusiast.

To go to the main Fedco Seeds site, click here. For a downloadable pdf copy of their catalog, go here.

Recipe: Roasted Acorn Squash with Cumin Butter

Recently, a garden friend gave me an acorn squash. I have to say that I am not a big fan of this particular vegetable. It's a textural and partly taste issue. After a long list of attempted and discarded recipes, I tried this recipe from one of my favorite vegetable cookbooks by Jack Bishop, Vegetables Every Day. This cookbook is absolutely amazing because the recipes are simple but highlight the complex flavors of different vegetables. If you recently purchased a share in a CSA, community supported agriculture, program, then I would definitely recommend checking this book out.

Ingredients:

• 1 acorn squash, cut in half, cleaned of pulp and seeds
• 3 T butter
• 1 t cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Place the acorn squash pieces, cut-side down, on a baking sheet coated in cooking spray.
3. Roast the squash for about 45 minutes.
4. Melt the butter, add cumin, salt, and pepper.
5. Brush the cumin butter over the squash halves and serve.

Pest: Slugs

Warm days, opening tunnel, surprise frost, slugs: who are you gonna call? Night feeding mollusks. Midnight cow.

Disaster this September, I diligently seeded 18 varieties of lettuce, for the second year, to continue with a winter lettuce variety trial. All of the varieties germinated and then the slugs struck. I have started a new garden this year and at first was at a loss. Chipmunk, rodent, slug? It is confirmed--- SLUGS!!!!

Well it is now the first week of November, what to do? I've decided that I will reseed as many varieties as possible along with mache and spinach. After seeding, I will apply a liberal dusting of diatomaceous earth to the soil surface.

Update to follow . . .

Planting the seeds of a low tunnel revolution

Last month, a group of volunteers helped to set-up a pilot low tunnel for the Gardening for Good project at Troy Community Gardens. Gardening for Good is a supported gardening project that hosts regular activities and special events to bring gardening to people with developmental disabilities. To learn more about Gardening for Good, go here.

I had a tremendous amount of fun sharing what I had learned after just two years of winter growing with unheated low tunnels. The summer gardening season is starting to wind down and I hope to have a little more time this winter to share some stories and ideas about extending the season in Wisconsin.

Blizzard-Tough Low Tunnels

Finally, this year, Wisconsin weather lives up to its reputation. I was hoping to test the snow and wind strength of the low tunnels last year but the winter was unseasonably mild with hardly any snowfall. This December, just in time for the holidays, Madison was walloped with a sixteen inch plus snow storm with winds in excess of 20 mph.

I've included some photos of the first of three low tunnel clean-ups. After some of the snow melted in January, I was able to harvest some celeriac that I'd been holding over since this summer.