Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has onions, garlic, winter squash, sweet potatoes, cabbage, celery root, carrots, black radishes, rutabagas, winter tomatoes, and greens
Field Notes. We have some greens in hoopettes in the garden, and we will see just how they do! This has been a season of extremes – 80 in October and a low of 5 in early November and this week may see the 60’s!
Ken has moved poultry into the garden for clean up – they eat weed seeds and any bugs they can find. We have been cleaning greenhouses for late winter plantings and Saturday we had help mulching strawberries and taking down some fencing. Thank you, Deb and Tony!
From the Kitchen. When we start lighting the cook stove I move toward slow food of soups and stews and slow baked sweet potatoes and squash. this week we have our first winter tomatoes. These are a keeper variety that never reddens or softens like a summer tomato. They get a blush and soften a bit. Great in salads.
We also have celery root, a European root that has the flavor of celery in a root about the texture of a carrot. I peel, cut off a chunk, dice and add to soups or grate and add to cole slaw.
‘Til Next time, Judith and the Gang
Hello Judy,
You mention these tomatoes “first winter tomatoes. These are a keeper variety that never reddens or softens like a summer tomato”.
What is the name of these specific tomatoes? Is this the first year you have grown them? I never saw them mentioned before. And do they actually taste as good as you describe ? Would like to try some of these in my garden next growing season.
Hi, Ken. They are in various seed catalogs with differing names like mystery keeper, long keeper, winter keeper. We plant them a bit later and harvest once they blush, wrap each in paper or newsprint and store on bread racks. They go from rock hard to softer and turn a light orange color (experiment and you will get it). We often can have them through January or February- good raw in salads or cooked. Go for it!