What are you planting in your garden this year?

[mrghostwalker]

Horseradish is on my bucket list. Please tell me how you use it. I also love Rutgers. I do Blue Lake Bush for edible green manure and around my corn. But, by far, my favorite bean is Fortex pole. And have recently discovered Butternut. I never liked the flavor of it until I tried growing it myself. Now, quite fond of it. Suyo Long cucumber is a great heirloom to grow.

Horseradish is easy but pungent! Dig it up in the fall and re-lay the bed with some of the strong, young roots. Take a few of the larger ones for eating. Wash well and peel. (It is advisable to peel them outside in the breeze so that the wind carries away the fumes otherwise it's like getting pepper spray in the eyes!. Also wear rubber gloves.) Then run the peeled roots through a food processor with a little cider vinegar and scant salt (to taste). Place in small jars with tight lids and refrigerate. Be warned- this it HOT stuff!!!. I like it on beef or mixed with ketchup as a sauce for shrimp and fried fish.
Rutgers is by far my favorite tomatoes. I like how they ripen fully when picked green in the fall. Our favorite way of making Butternut is to peel and dice it. Then roast it like quartered potatoes with olive oil and whatever seasoning we want. (We like to make sweet potatoes the same way)

 

[Britesea]

I tried growing some horseradish last year, but when I dug it up, the roots were small and skinny- I think the biggest ones were only about 1/2" in diameter- too small to peel... any idea what I did wrong?

 

[wyoDreamer]

This is the extent of my knowledge on horseradish and what I learned as a young girl helping my grandparents in their gardens.

Horseradish takes an entire season to grow if started from a root. Plant before the last frost and harvest after the leaves show damage from frost in the fall.

My grandma started her plants in spring as soon as the frost left the ground, and used the smaller roots (< 1/2 inch) that she had stored from the fall picking. They had a root cellar and overwintered a lot of different plants in there. She always had at least 1 plant from the year before still growing in the ground and would plant 2 more - never more than 3 plants growing at a time or it would take over the space she had for it. She would harvest from the older plant all summer, then harvest it and one of the new plants that fall. She didn't like her horseradish roots to get too big, as she thought the smaller roots tasted "sharp and fresh" and the bigger roots were more woody tasting, but that was just her opinion. I cannot eat the stuff, so I wouldn't know though.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I've heard that the leaves can be cooked as a "green".

 

[Marianne]

The gardening bug has hit me. But.. Nutz. Gardening was always my thing, but my health took a major dive a few years ago, so if I can get a couple tomato plants in, I'll be doing good. I can probably get some help to put in a half dozen sweet potato plants. We've had sweet potatoes that weighed over 7 lbs that were good! But that will be it.
We do harvest and eat the sweet potato leaves and the weeds, though.

 

[Mini Horses]

Grandma always had pickled corn and pickled beans -- believe the beans were in jars (?). In those years they couldn't always plant more than one kind of corn -- no seed variety available, no space, needed to feed animals, too. As a preservation method, many veggies were pickled.
Similar to making sauerkraut...another preserve it idea. Of course, these things give us great gut flora, too.

Grandma would often pull the ears from the crock, lightly rinse and then cut from cob for a dishful to serve at a meal.

I have some golden bantam seed. The corn was good, not super sweet but enough. Like beekissed says, very corn flavored. It's also a smaller stalk height and ear size. I like that part, as well as the taste.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I got attacked by the gardening bug while I was shopping!
I bought a packet of Walla-Walla onion seed, a package of Salad Mix - Italian, spinach and 3 kinds of sweet corn. ha-ha. I managed to make myself put back about 10 packets of seed - but I could not let go of those. I wanted some carrot seed so I could make some seed tapes for carrots, but they didn't have anything but multi colored carrots...
The onions will be started this week as well as the salad greens mix. The onions will go out into the garden but the salad mix will be in my kitchen for immediate use to jazz up my boring romaine lettuce salads.

(And yes I know, if it ain't grown in Walla-Walla it ain't a walla-walla, but that is what the package says)

 

[Mini Horses]

It's still a sweeter onion! I love onions and garlic. My DS girlfriend made an onion casserole dish that was wonderful -- an onion casserole! How nice.

While I would love to grow every single veggie out there, truth is, with only ME to eat them, some things that are not so co-operative, I just buy. It's a choice to adapt what I use more of, expense to buy, availability, etc. So I plant eggplant -- which I love -- green type onions, tomatoes, beans, greens, squash (summer & winter), cruciferous veggs, etc. They like to grow in my area and I use more of those than others. Oddly my kids eat far less veg variety than I, even tho they were raised with all of them.

Sometimes we need to reassess what we "want" to grow and why. That's the hard part!! I love sweet potatoes but generally buy a slew when on sale, or a box from a local farm in the Fall -- with some dirt still on them!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

What kind of eggplant do you grow? I'm trying them for a second year. No production last year. Not even sure if I like to eat them. But, I would like to like eating them, if that makes any sense!!!

 

[wyoDreamer]

@Lazy Gardener I get what you are saying!
I am going to plant a couple different kinds of beets - because I would like to like to eat them.
I want to try roasted beets, saute'ed beet greens and pickled beets. Any plant that does a triple duty like that should belong in a self-sufficient garden.