Growing Garlic in the Home Garden

Garlic (Allium Sativum L.) is an essential ingredient in many cuisines and for good reason. Garlic not only adds flavors to foods, it also possess great health benefit. Eating garlic regularly can lower cholesterol level, ease hypertension. Garlic also has anti-bacterial and antioxidant quality, therefore can help prevent improve your health. Home grown garlic has a special pungent and sweet taste.

There are many different varieties of garlic; they can be divided into hard-neck types and soft-neck types. The hard-neck varieties produce fewer, larger cloves surrounding a hard center woody stem. The soft-neck varieties do not have a stiff stem growing in the center; instead the center of the bulb is filled with smaller sized cloves. Farmer’s markets are a good source to obtain seed garlic. If you can find a garlic festival nearby, it will be well worth a trip. You will be able to find all kinds of varieties to grow in your own garden.

The garlic will start to grow prior to the arrival of winter, and then become dormant during the winter. When spring arrives, the garlic start to grow again and ready to be harvested in the summer. It is important to plant garlic in near the autumn equinox, this will ensure the garlic develop just enough before going to dormant, but not too much. If the garlic developed too much before going into dormancy, it will hurt the development of the bulb later.

1. Soil preparation
Work soil up by digging with a shovel to about 8” deep, loose up the soil and break up the clumps. Form a 3 feet wide bed. Add 2”-3” compost to the bed and rack it into the soil

2. See Garlic Selection: Select large firm garlic bulbs for planting. Separate the bulbs into individual cloves, discard the small ones, keep only the large healthy cloves for planting. The size of the seed garlic has the greatest impact on the quality of bulbs it produces.

3. Planting: Garlic typically takes 7-8 months to develop. Plant garlic the fall, bottom side down 1.5”-2” deep, space the garlic cloves 4-5” apart. It is important to leave enough space so it is easier when you weed the garlic later on.

4. Care of garlic in the growing season:
a) Water the garlic when the ground is dry in the spring.
b) Remove weeds to they do not compete nutrients with the garlic, at the same time, loosen the soil so the garlic bulbs will have an easier time to grow and expand.
c) Garlic will develop shoots (also called garlic scapes) in early summer; remove them as they develop. The shoots are garlic’s way of producing seeds, removing the scapes will direct more energy towards developing the garlic bulbs. Plus, they are delicious in stir-fries (see recipe).
d) Water the garlic well again after the scapes are removed, this will allow the garlic bulbs to expand.
e) Harvest the garlic in later summer when the tips of the garlic begin to show some yellowing. Harvest garlic bulbs by digging them up, leave them in the ground for a day or two to allow some drying.
f) Braid the garlic together and hang them up to allow continued drying, this process is called curing. Properly cured garlic will last 8-10 month.

Fine Caramel (Pine nuts Caramel)

Making your own candy allows you to add special flavors that you do not normally get. This recipe uses a traditional caramel recipe, incorporates with nuts of your choice. The key to make caramel is the temperature control. An infrared thermometer with digital display comes in handy for this application.

Caramel is basically made with sugar, cream and butter. The key to make the caramel with the right consistency is to control the temperatures. There are two key temperatures for this process: (1) When melting the sugar, allow the sugar to melt completely, and then continue to heat it until it reaches 310 F. (2) After adding cream, the temperature should drop to around 210 F. Let the moisture to bubbles out, and continue to cook until it reaches 340-345 F., this is the soft candy stage. 

Ingredients:

2 cups of cane sugar;

1 cup of light corn syrup;

1.5 cups of heavy cream;

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract;

1/2 cup of butter, cut into small cubes;

1/4 teaspoon of salt;

1 cup roasted pine nuts, or other nuts of your choice.

Method:

Step1: Combine sugar and syrup, cook on medium heat until sugar melt. This process can take over 10 minutes. Check the temperature frequently with the digital infrared thermometer until it registers 310F. Reduce the heat to low.

[Did you know? The temperature of the mixture will not rise until all the sugar crystal is melted. This is because the sugar is going through a phase change-from solid to liquid. This process takes heat, therefore the heat inputted will go to melting the sugar crystals instead of raising the temperature of the mixture.]

Step2: Heat the cream with vanilla extract in the microwave until hot (not boiling), gradually add the cream to the molten syrup. Stir (careful keeping the bubbling down, remove from heat if necessary). This will reduce the temperature to around 210F. Keep cooking the mixture until most moisture is boiled out. Once that happens, the temperature will tart to rise again. Keep cooking until the temperature reaches 240-245F.

Step3: Remove the mixture from the heat. Add the butter cubes, salt and nuts, stir to distribute them evenly in the mixture. Pour the mixture in a flat baking sheet. Allow to cool, then cut into small pieces. Wrap with wax paper. Enjoy!

http://newdimensionseed.com/cooking/desserts_bacon-caramel.html

Sweet Turnips that Just Don't Know When to Quit!

At the end of August, I pulled all my cucumber vines out of the garden, cleared the spot. The beans and corns are still going strong, weather was still decent. Staring at the bare spot, I thought to myself: if I leave it like it is, weeds are going to take over. I still have some Sweetbell Turnip left from the spring, what could I loose? I scattered the seeds in the newly cleared spot, without adding any fertilizers to the soil. Since I have never done this before, I sowed the turnips densely, thinking, the weather here in  the Pacific Northwest could turn any time, the extra seeds would give me some wiggle room in case not all of them will make it.  One week later, I spotted densely packed turnip seedlings everywhere. The turnips were not big enough to eat, and they grew way too close together. So I started thinning by eating the "micro greens" (they were delicious in salads). By October, I got golf ball sized turnips, I pickled, made roasted turnips, turnip au gratin, gave them away, looked for all sorts of ways to dispose of them.... This continued until Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, the weather was getting cooled and cooler. The night time temperature was going toward freezing.

I picked as big of a batch of turnips as I could. Washed and removed the greens, bagged the turnips. I was ready to give up the rest of it. December rolled along, we had several days with night time temperature down to the 20th. I did not go check the turnips for several days, I was certain they were goners. Well, well, well, what do I know?! I went to check my turnip patch today, they are still going strong!!!! Looks like the outer leaves may have been frozen and thawed, but the turnips were as sweet as ever! I am now convinced there must be anti-freeze in the turnips! That may well be the case, the starch in the turnips could be keeping them from freezing. Whatever the case, I am going to have to do this every year. The lesson is: Plant Silverbell Sweet Turnip in the fall, you will be richly rewarded!

Barred Rocks: One of my favorite breed

Barred rocks are full of characters. They are inquisitive, friendly and easy to manage. They are somewhat early maturing, start laying after about 6 month. They are not very big in size making them ideal for backyard flock.

Leghorn-The egg laying machine

 At 4 lb. full grown Leghorns may not be as good looking as some of the other hens, but don't under estimate their egg laying abilities. Leghorns are bread for their egg laying abilities, most white eggs produced commercially are produced by leghorns. Our leghorns lay one egg a day for almost two years. They are not broody, and do not molt as frequent as the other hens. Since they are small in size, they do not consume a lot of feed, giving you excellent feed to egg conversion ratio.

Ameraucana Laying Hens

Ameraucana hens are fine laying hens, they are calm, non-aggressive and easy to manage. They love to graze, eating weeds and grass clippings or any vegetable scraps. They lay dark yellow yolked eggs. They lay eggs about every other day during their production period.

Sweet and Sour Eggplant

Learn to make the sweet and sour eggplant is well worth the efforts. The basic recipe for a sweet and sour sauce is: 3:2:1, that is 3 Tablespoons of sugar to 2 Tablespoons of vinegar to 1 Tablespoon of light soy sauce. Use a little cornstarch to thicken the sauce. You can add other stuff to suit your taste, I have added sesame seed oil, chopped scallion and crushed garlic to flavor the eggplant.

Ingredients:

1 large Eggplant
A pinch of hot pepper flakes
1 thin slice of ginger
Oil for frying

Light and Crunchy Batter:
3 T. rice flour (use all-purpose flour if unavailable)
2 T. cornstarch
1 egg yoke
3 T. rice wine vinegar or dry sherry wine

Easy Sweet and Sour Sauce:
3 T. sugar
2 T. Balsamic vinegar
1 T. light soy sauce
1 t. sesame seed oil
1 t. cornstarch
2 T. water
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 scallion, white part, chopped

Slice the eggplant into 1-1/2" x 1/4" slices. Sprinkle salt and toss. Let the eggplant set for 15 minutes. Squeeze to remove the moisture from the eggplant. Place the eggplant pieces in the batter. Toss to coat. Heat a large frying pan with 2" oil until hot. Fry the eggplant slices until golden, 2-3 minutes. Removed the fried eggplant and place them in a paper towel to drain.

Heat 1 T. oil in the frying pan, add hot pepper flakes and ginger. Cook until fragrance begin to come out. Add the sweet and sour sauce. Stir, cook until thickened. Add the fried eggplant, toss to coat. Slice the green portion of the scallion and sprinkle on top. Serve with rice.