Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower
I’d like to say this is the year of the cauliflower because I keep finding new recipes but its popularity ebbs and flows. Apparently, per capita consumption peaked in 1946, then rose again during the hippy vegetarian era in the 70’s and 80’s before falling again until...
November Garden
Years ago we could expect a heavy blanket of snow to cover the garden from December until March. Snow cover is a good thing, but we can no longer count on it. Until this week, November temperatures in southern Wisconsin have been way above historic normals. It’s...
Cherry Tomato Pasta
Tomato season is just about over here in southern Wisconsin, unless you have a greenhouse. We’ve had a couple of light freezes, and since we are on tomato overload, our plants have been pulled. This doesn’t mean we’re out – we have a 6-foot table plus of tomatoes in...
Eggplant Pasta Sauce
Noel has done it again. There are tomatoes everywhere in this house and still on the vine. Tomorrow is the first of October and there are still bowls of tomatoes to pick! Last week I canned two batches (14 pints) of salsa and baked a tomato cobbler with blue cheese...
September Garden
As we move into fall, we’re still getting lots of good stuff from the garden. The tomato plants are succumbing to late blight, but it doesn’t matter anymore because we have already harvested all we need and there is still plenty of fruit ripening on the vines....
Weeding is Fun. Maybe.
We’ve had some spectacularly beautiful weather here. For the past several weeks it’s been mostly highs in the upper 70’s with cool nights. Unlike the few parts of the country where the weather is mostly always pleasant, we celebrate and appreciate these really nice...
Parmesan Crusted Summer Squash
Help! The summer squash are taking over the kitchen. We had planned to plant two yellow squash and two zucchini plants but one zucchini plant expired and we only had a yellow squash as a spare, so three yellow and one green. We are harvesting some green zucchini just...
Roasted Garlic Bulbs
This was a good year for garlic here in southern Wisconsin. The bulbs were bigger than ever due to all the rain we had. Since Noel uses the raised bed method of growing there was plenty of drainage, otherwise there would have been some mushy garlic. The bulbs came out...
CobraHead Tools Now Available in Australia and New Zealand!
We are so pleased to announce that CobraHead tools are now available in Australia and New Zealand! We've had fans from Down Under for many years, and now they no longer have to pay shipping costs that are higher than the price of the tools themselves. Our partner, All...
Fruit Pizza
We had a nice crop of strawberries this year, though we had to share some with the birds and voles. As I was trying to figure out a garden-related recipe to share I thought of this fruit pizza that my friend Eve used to make for potlucks. I had previously made fruit...
Let it Bolt
I let a lot of plants bolt in the garden. Plants bolt when they are ready to produce seeds. They will develop a flowering stem and if left alone will often develop viable seeds. Gardeners often try to discourage bolting. We want leafy greens, not seeds. Bolting stems...
Rhubarb Bread
It's rhubarb time. I dug out my old 'Jane Brody Good Food Book' and experimented with her rhubarb banana crisp recipe. I was hoping the bananas would be the magic needed to cut way back on the sugar needed for the tart stalks. It was okay, and did the trick,...
Kale – A Most Versatile Green
One of the advantages of leaving plants in the garden overwinter is that some of them sprout again or regrow from the root. Different types of kale can be annuals or biennials. The several types of kale that we grew last year have grown new edible leaves this spring....
Pea Planting Time
The weather here, like everywhere, keeps getting weirder. I’ve been gardening the same plot for over 35 years and the last couple years have really departed from what used to be normal. This year is extremely wet and warm. It’s been hard to get the beds prepped...
Sweet Potato Latkes
In spite of the hungry voles that ravaged our sweet potato patch we still have at least 40 lbs in storage. So I started looking through my cookbooks and was reminded about this latke recipe that I used to make several years ago from the book "Vegetarian...
Getting Ready for Gardening
March is nearly over and we are getting serious about this year’s garden. I’ve got a few things started in the house and things are popping outside. This flat is bottom heated and top lit. It has peppers, eggplant and cauliflower. The peppers and eggplant haven’t...
Blue Scalloped Potatoes and Green Bean Surprise
We are still eating our Adirondack Blue potatoes (and other types) from last year's harvest. They have done very well in Noel's make-shift above ground root cellar in the barn. I have adapted our usual cheesy garlic potato bake and added some frozen green beans, also...
February Garden Musings
The weather in southern Wisconsin, as everywhere, is alarming. Record one day temperature swings. It was 73 yesterday and 12 this morning. It will be back to the 60’s in a couple days. This new normal will cause mostly grief for gardeners and growers, but I’ll try to...
Butternut Squash Cranberry Bake
We are working our way through our garden harvest. We still have potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes and winter squash, along with lots of various frozen veggies. Below is how I made use of one of our butternut squashes. Ingredients 5-6 cups chopped butternut squash (1...
Garlic Under Straw
Judy and I just got back from three weeks in Texas. I was behind in the garden before we left and three weeks away have put me quite a bit further back. I missed a lot of garden clean up and prep for next season. One fall chore that I never try to miss is getting a...