I love growing my own vegetables, and last year planted a wide variety of veggies in my yard. I was disappointed when my fear of not enough sunshine was realized: while carrots and turnips and radish LOOKED to be growing well, when harvest time came, no roots had developed! In the case of the turnips, the greens were delish. And then I realized: greens! That’s what my space is good for!
So this spring I’m dedicating myself to an all-out lettuce garden. Along the way, I’ve accumulated a few tips that I’ll share here.
Soil for lettuce
If you’re going to sow directly into the earth, be sure your soil is of good quality. If you are using bagged top soil (that’s the primary ingredient in my tire garden), you’ll want to mix it with some peat and maybe a even a little sand. If you are working the earth in your garden or yard, you may want to consider testing your soil
first, to make sure it has all the nutrients it needs.
Sowing lettuce seed
I started some seed indoors in peat pots, and quickly learned that you don’t want to place the seeds too deep. About 3/8 of an inch is plenty deep. Otherwise, your seed has to work really hard to break through and your original seedlings will be compromised.
Growing lettuce from transplants
I was lucky to find some lettuce starter plants at the farmer’s market. After two weeks, they were ready for some harvesting! Check out your local farmer’s market, or even your local nursery, for some healthy seedlings. I haven’t had luck with those from the big box stores; they tasted bitter. Someone told me that happens when the plants are forced, so I would avoid the major chain starter plants.
Types of lettuce
There are crispheads, romains, butter heads and leaf lettuces. So far I have only grown leaf varieties, so can’t really speak to the other types. I have grown lettuce before with great success in the Seattle area, but this will be my first year trying it in Michigan. I have several varieties of leaf lettuces planted, including, oak leaf, grand rapids, salad bowl, arugula, and butter crunch. So far they all seem to be doing well. I also sowed chard from seed, which I tend to eat as a lettuce (as a baby, before it gets big).
Tending your lettuce plants
Lettuces love nitrogen-rich soil. I like to feed their need by sprinkling on a little organic blood meal once a week before a big watering. My lettuce loves this!I hear that fish emulsion also does well, but I have avoided that for fear it will attract my cats!
Lettuce is also a water-loving plant (as you could have guessed). You don’t want the soil to get too dry. So far this spring I’ve been lucky with lots of rain, but I know that Michigan can get dry so I’m prepared to mulch (w/ straw) around my matured plants as the weather gets drier. This mulch will also produce nitrogen for the soil as it decomposes, so I’ll also let up on the blood meal treatments when I’m at this stage.
How to harvest lettuce
There are two methods for harvesting leaf lettuce (keep in mind this does not apply to the head lettuces).
- Cut the lettuce about an inch from the soil, leaving in tact the leaves at the middle of the plant, which will continue to grow and produce more lettuce.
- Remove the outer leaves of the plant, leaving the center to continue to mature.
I use the second method, but am only harvesting a few plants for a two-person household. I think cutting is probably the quickest way if you have a larger harvest to tend.
Keep it going!
You’ll find that after about four weeks of harvesting (plant will be about 10-12 weeks from sprouting) your plant will get bitter. This means it’s time to toss that plant onto the compost pile. This means you need to keep a rotating crop. Planting some seeds every 3 to 4 weeks should keep you in plenty of lettuce. I like a salad every night with dinner and have found that ten to twelve lettuce plants per person should keep everyone in plenty of salad (depending on how much you eat!).
Homemade sauerkraut is more than just delicious, it’s actually enormously healthful. For lovers of homemade food everywhere, this basic recipe can be your guide to experimenting with kraut adventures. While kraut has the reputation of being a German food, it’s actually just the German name for the simple brine fermentation that is a common practice of preserving vegetables in cultures throughout the world. Pickles and kimchee are other examples, for instance.
If you love the crunchy, tangy taste of sauerkraut, you’re actually tapping into an ancient tastebud tradition. Fermented vegetables have been in the human diet for thousands of years! Our ancestors were working in harmony with the microbial environment to preserve food with fermentation, and without the aid of a refrigerator, probably even before the advent of fire.
And yet, in the past few generations (you can thank Louis Pasteur for this), we have erased the actual TRUE goodness of sauerkraut and its brethren from the modern American diet. You see, the sauerkraut and pickles you buy in the store have been heat processed, and so robbed of many of the valuable micro nutrients our bodies have thrived on for eons.
But the good news is, you can easily remedy this grave gastric injustice right in your very own kitchen. You can stage a silent coup of the industrial food monopoly in a jar or crock of your own design. So far, there are no food police, so you’re still allowed to enjoy delicious food of made in the privacy of your subversive culinary habitat. And it’s so easy.
Wild Fermentation - How fermented food can change the world
I have to give a shout out to my friend Mike Clark for turning me on to this wonderful book. Wild Fermentation not only tells you how to make kraut from scratch, it chronicles the makings of dozens of fermented culinary delights that anyone can master. This book is more than just a great DIY guide, it’s a manifesto for health, wellness, and whole food, free from industrial processing. Wild Fermentation encourages us to take control of our own diets and take back our culinary history from the powerful food industry that perpetuates our separation from the grounding, life-giving forces of nature.
Everything I learned about sauerkraut I learned from this book by Sandor Ellis Katz. And, yes, I admit it freaked me out at first to be eating something that had been sitting at room temperature for several days. But overcoming my fear has paid off big time. Now there is not a day that a crock of kraut is not seasoning in some corner of my kitchen.
Sauerkraut recipe
A pictoral step-by-step of kraut making.
In this recipe I used equal parts red and green cabbage, plus I added some lovely fresh, local beet greens.
Chop the cabbage and greens into bite-sized pieces.
After producing a thick layer of chopped veggies, sprinkle some sea salt. No need to measure. But err on the light side. A good rule of thumb is about one tablespoon per cabbage head.
Continue until all your vegetables are chopped. Then mix them up, distributing the salt throughout.
Pack the vegetables tightly into a jar or crock. I use a wooden spoon or mallet (intended for meat tenderizing). The crushing of the leaves helps the salt to penetrate the vegetables and draw out the water.
Choose a lid that will fit very snugly inside the crock or jar. A bit of space is allowable, but you want to be sure to keep ALL the vegetables submerged under the brine. You’ll also want to weigh down the lid with a heavy rock or another jar filled with water.
Use a snug fitting lid with a weight,
or use a tightly fitting jar filled with water
to weigh down the kraut below the brine level.
Here I use a tupperware lid,
and weigh it down with a
boiled rock from Lake Michigan!
Press down the weight every few hours or so until you you are assured that water has risen above the vegetables. It can take up to 24 hours for the salt to completely leech the water from the vegetables. If after 24 hours there’s still not enough water to cover the veggies, you’ll want to add a bit of brine. Use 1 tablespoon of salt, completely dissolved, per cup of water.
The brine should be over your lid,
and no veggies showing!
This can take up to 24 hours.
It is VERY IMPORTANT that your lid is snug enough that NO VEGETABLES are floating to the top. Vegetables MUST stay submerged, or you are going to invite the wrong kind of bacteria into your crock - and the result will just be putrid vegetables rather than fermented kraut. (You’ll know from the smell, trust me. And nothing is sadder than having to throw out your lovingly chopped cabbage that never got the chance to fulfill its nutritive potential.)
Leave your crock ajar, but cover it with a towel to keep out dust (or cat hair!)
So now you wait. Don’t seal the crock. Leave it open a crack. You will want to cover it with a clean dish towel to keep dust out, but allow air to circulate. Each day or so you may want to check your crock to be sure all is well. The water has a tendency to evaporate if your home is very dry or the weather is warm. After day four or five you can remove the weight and lid and sample your kraut. I’ve found that day ten to twelve (here in winter in Michigan) is when I find it “perfect” - I then take out a big handful to put it in the fridge to enjoy. I carefully repack the crock, submerging the cabbage and weighing it down, to let the remaining kraut season even further, creating new taste variations as it ages.
Kraut around my house never lasts past week three, as we eat it pretty quickly, but you can continue to store it under brine for many weeks in cool weather. Of course in hot weather the kraut will mature more quickly.
Finished purple kraut
So that’s it! Pretty simple! I like to add my kraut to a sandwich of steamed kale, mustard, and tahini on rye bread for a lovely vegetarian ruben. It’s also amazing on sausages. Or just straight out of the jar! My roommate and I love to just eat a bowl of it when it has finally reached maturity..sort of a little kraut celebration, an epicurean tribute to the wonders of home fermenting!
I’ve experimented with combinations of cabbages and greens - probably my favorite combo being a spicy pink kraut I accomplished by combing four heads of green cabbage, one head of red cabbage, two large bunches of mustard greens, and four tablespoons of mustard seeds.
Makings of spicier kraut
Feel free to experiment! Add garlic and peppercorns. Spinach and kale. Get creative! Enjoy!
Ask me if I’d like some carrot soup and, like most people, I’d answer, “uhh…what are my other options? ” But all that has changed since I discovered this recipe!
I’ve realized in recent months that I was throwing away too much food, so I’m trying to be more disciplined and efficient with what’s on hand. This week I had a big bag of baby carrots, just sitting there, waiting for inspiration. I had not much else in the way of vegetables, either. And true to my mandate to stick with what’s in my fridge, I decided to try to find some way to use those little suckers.
RECIPE BOOK COLLECTION TO THE RESCUE
I use carrots in vegetable soups and salads, but don’t really have any tricks up my sleeve for highlighting them. To the rescue - the always entertaining Isa Chandra Moskowitz, creator of the PPK (Post Punk Kitchen). Whether you’re vegan or not, you’ve gotta love Isa’s style and her cookbooks, just loaded with thoughtful alternatives, enlightening suggestions and inspiration to be creative.
From her book Vegan with a Vengeance I found her recipe for Carrot Bisque. I noted I luckily had all the ingredients on hand — this one calls for a can of coconut milk (I keep a couple of cans from Trader Joe’s tucked away for Thai curry emergencies). So i was all set! I varied the recipe a bit - hers called for curry powder and I just made my own little curry with cumin, red pepper, garam masala and ginger. (Curry is actually a combination of spices that varies from region to region, and even family to family, in India, so I rarely keep the nebulously titled “curry powder” around - instead opt to make impromptu variations.)
CURRY SOUP?! WE HAVE A WINNER!
I have to say the sweet nutty richness of the coconut milk, with the spice of the pepper and cumin, made this a truly complex, satisfying and memorable soup. HIGHLY recommended! (I actually just bought more carrots today, an extra big bag, with plans to pair it with that last can of coconut milk waiting patiently in the pantry.)
COMPLETING THE MEAL
But the challenge was not over! I had to make the soup part of a complete winter-night meal. I had some cooked chick peas that needed to be used or they were going to riot their way right into the garbage can. So I whipped up a little crowd-pleasing hummus, adding cumin to bridge the gap between the two dishes. It was actually a great meal, receiving favorable views from the assembled diners - myself included.
Like many people these days, I’m stocking my cupboard with a strict budget in mind. This means coupons and cutting back on a lot of culinary luxuries that I once enjoyed. For instance, only breaking out the truffle oil when I have company, as I can’t justify spending $12 on two ounces of oil any time soon - as much as I ADORE truffle oil!
Part of my strategy is to buy less packaged foods and hit the bulk bins. I even have a great store here in Ann Arbor, called By the Pound, that is just bins and bins of grains, legumes, flours, spices, nuts, fruits - just everything a person could need. Even coffee and sweets. I feel so “smart-shoppery” when I leave there, little sacks of ingredients just waiting to be turned into healthy, economical, and delicious meals at my hand.
As I’ve been stocking up on the essentials, I’ve also been spending more time in the kitchen, as these in-bulk ingredients take a little more skill, thought, and time to become something truly wonderful.
GIVING POLENTA A CHANCE
In the past I’ve enjoyed polenta at restaurants or prepared easily from a pre-made packaged brand. Seeing polenta in my recipe books, it always seemed too involved to make at home. There is a prolonged cooking period - you must boil on the stove and stir frequently. But seeing that the price is so inexpensive, and considering I am spending so much more time in the kitchen anyway, I decided to give it a try. And I am very glad I did!
Polenta wasn’t really that hard to make. There was the stirring in the first few minutes, but I found it just requires a little check in now and again after the first 15 minutes or so. (There are also recipes that involve only baking and no stove top preparation — even better!) I’ve prepared a batch and kept it in the refrigerator as a hearty side that could be baked or fried throughout the week. A small batch lasted for four meals for two people. I even had a little bit for breakfast one morning, and it was very satisfying.
SOME SERVING SUGGESTIONS:
- Fry and serve with beans and greens
- Bake until golden and serve with marinated tofu, topped with salsa
- Bake and serve topped with chili for an especially filling meal
- Bake and top with and your favorite Italian marinara (I like mushrooms and red peppers, myself!)
- Bake or fry and top with goat cheese and chopped herbs
Here are some recipes for creating basic polenta - from the iCook Club and Busy Family Meals. .As I said, I stored the basic prepared polenta in the refrigerator, baking or frying throughout the week. But you can also freeze it. My favorite so far has been with added herbs from the garden along with some chopped mushrooms, just toward the end of boiling.
NOTE ON COOKING POLENTA
when boiling polenta, if it seems to still be under-cooked (i.e. a little crunchy) and yet is already quite thick, feel free to add more water than the recipe calls for until you get the desired consistency!
And if you don’t want to spend time over the stove top, try this version!
If polenta is new to you, I urge you to give it a try. You may find it a favorite addition to your repertoire. I know I did!
Well, my apologies for the lack of posts as of late. My camera went kerplunk and it’s been hard for me to invest $ in a new one when this one is less than a year old. I’ve sent it off to the happy place for a repair, but in the meantime, I’ve borrowed a friend’s camera in order to bring you this snap of the current state of my tire garden.
My goal with this garden was to be able to throw together a fresh salad in a moment’s notice, without a trip to the store or farmer’s market. So most of my veggies are salad-inspired, although several are cookable, such as zucchini and kohlrabi. And of course I have herbs.
I have a total of 10 tires growing a variety of veggies, from cabbages to radishes to arugula to onions. Here’s how it went down: I called a local tire place and asked if I they could donate some old tires for the cause; they gladly complied. I washed them out thoroughly with Simple Green to get rid of any gross road dirt or heavy metals. Then I bought a very sturdy serrated knife/saw from the hardware store and cut the outer wall of one side of each tire, in order to provide the most surface area. (Special thanks to my dear friend Michael for all the help in cutting that rubber! It was no easy feat.)
I have special circumstances in my yard: the sunlight is scant. I set six of my tires in the center of the yard, where it gets about five hours of sun. I placed four other tires in two spots that had less measurable sun exposure.
So far, predictably, the greens, like spinach, rape, and arugula, are doing well. Also, my red cabbage plants are out of control! Zucchini is also growing like something from outer space. The turnips, onions, and radishes are faring well. Also, all my herbs are looking good. But kohlrabi, peas, peppers, and tomatoes seem to be less spunky, although still looking healthy. Carrots and eggplant are having a tough time, still appearing as mere sprouts even after six weeks from sowing. I attribute the lack of success with some of these plants to the limited amount of sunlight. And will take these learnings and apply to next year’s planning.
I learned in my research for this stuffed garden space that bushing plants, as well as root plants, are best for the limited amount of space. I’ve somewhat violated this wisom by trying out some vining veggies in hopes of trellissing for maximum space utilization. So far it is too early to see how my deviations will pay off. Stay tuned!
