Pruning Olive Trees
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
The olive is an evergreen plant that can grow as a shrub, hedge, or tree. Olive trees can grow as tall as 30 feet. Olives bear small pitted fruits that can be cured for table consumption or pressed for oil. Some olives are grown for ornamental use, often as shrubs or hedges--the olive's narrow gray-green leaves offset the dark green of most gard...
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Kitchen Garden Almanac for November
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
November is still a busy month in the kitchen garden. Many would say November is the most important month--now is the time to prepare the soil for next spring and afterwards put the garden to bed for the winter. (Of course, winter vegetable gardening can be very rewarding. So if you are continuing the fresh harvest through to February, you shoul...
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November Garden in the Northern Hemisphere
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
If Novem is the Latin word for nine, then why is November the eleventh month of the year?It all started in 46 B.C, when Julius Caesar asked the astronomer Sosigenes to review the calendar and improve it.Calendars are systems for measuring and recording the passage of time. Nature gives us a regular sequence of seasons. Since nature controls the ...
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November Garden in the Southern Hemisphere
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
November is one of the most beautiful months of the year in the southern hemisphere. The cold is gone but summer's intense heat has not yet arrived.The trees and grass are green. The forsythia and dogwood are in bloom. The birds have built their summer nests, and the first crops in the vegetable garden have begun to sprout.Here is a planting sch...
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Planting Lettuce
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Ready to stretch your growing season: get an early start in spring or keep the season going in autumn? Lettuce is your choice. Lettuce does not like warm days and nights, so the cool time of the year is lettuce season. You can lengthen your growing season dramatically with a lettuce box--that's a cold frame dedicated to lettuce growing. A lettu...
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Making Compost
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
The combination of dead vegetation with air and moisture will result in compost. Composting is natural decomposition. Composting can take place in a simple free-standing heap of garden waste or a homemade wire-mesh container or a commercially made bin. Here are the basics you'll need to know to start composting at home: • Site the compost...
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Planting Onions
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Onions are a kitchen staple. Grow onions from seed, seedlings, or sets (small dry onion bulbs started the year before). Bulbing onions require 80 to 120 days to reach harvest. Green onions are harvested before they form bulbs, in 40 days or less. Spring onions form small, immature bulbs and are harvested in 40 to 60 days. Planting Calendar. Oni...
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Kitchen Garden Almanac for October
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Steve ..1 Comments
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Early October is the right time to begin thinking about the coming frost and cold weather. How will you extend the season if your summer crops are not yet ready for harvest?Many warm-weather crops and all cool-weather crops can withstand the first or second or even third frost with a little protection. Extending the season in autumn is different...
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October Garden in the Northern Hemisphere
by
Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
The name October comes from the Latin word for eight, "octo". October was the eighth month in the Roman calendar. That all changed in the sixteenth century when the Gregorian calendar was adopted. Now, October is the tenth month.The whole reason for changing the calendar came with the notion of bringing the calendar into synch with the...
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October Garden in the Southern Hemisphere
by
Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
October is the month of greatest change in the southern hemisphere kitchen garden, spring is here. Now is the time to plant with the summer reward in mind.Plant tomato, eggplant, capsicum, cucumber, sweet corn, marrow, melons, zucchini, and pumpkin this month in all but the coldest regions of the southern hemisphere.Plant beets and radishes. Wat...
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Harvesting and Storing Pears
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Bartlettpears come to harvest in summer; most other varieties come to harvest in early autumn. European pears such as Bartlett and Comice ripen to perfection only after they are removed from the tree having been picked still green and hard. Allow these pears to ripen on the counter at about 75°F/24°C. Asian pears ripen on the tree and do...
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Planting Cabbage
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Cabbage can be harvested nearly all year round as long as the weather stays cool. Plant cabbage in early to mid spring for harvest mid summer onwards. Plant autumn cabbage in late spring for harvest in fall. Plant winter cabbage in late spring for harvest in winter. Plant spring cabbage in summer for harvest next spring. The key is to choose the...
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Planting Cauliflower
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Cauliflower can be expensive at the produce counter, but it can be a staple of the kitchen garden with cool weather and regular water. Cauliflower requires two months of cool weather to reach harvest. Protected from frost it is a good choice in the spring and autumn gardens. ( Tips on cooking cauliflower, click here.) Planting Calendar. Cauli...
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Vegetables for Winter Storage
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
When harvest comes for each crop, be thorough. The best specimens will go right to the table. All crops need to be harvested. What you can't use fresh, store for later use. Crops that are damaged should still be picked and sent to the compost pile. Harvest varies from crop to crop and also with your taste. You may prefer some vegetables young, s...
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Brussels Sprouts Planting Guide
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Brussels sprouts can be served as a side dish alone or with a sauce. Add Brussels sprouts to soups, stews, and stir-fries. ( Tips on cooking and serving Brussels sprouts click here. )Planting Calendar. Brussels sprouts are best grown in cool weather, usually in early spring or autumn. Sprouts require from 80 to 110 days with daylight temperature...
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Beets Planting Guide
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Beets roots can be eaten raw or cooked and added to salads and soups. Beet greens and thinnings can be eaten raw in salads or cooked much like spinach. ( Tips on cooking and serving beets click here.) Planting Calendar. Beets grow best in cool weather, in early spring or autumn. Beets grown in cool weather will be sweet and crisp. The temperatur...
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Prickly Pear
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
The prickly pear is a cactus fruit that is actually a berry. The pulp of the prickly pear is sweet and moist with an aroma and flavor similar to a combination of the tastiest tropical and subtropical fruits, strawberry, watermelon, honeydew melon, fig, and banana. The salmon or pink to magenta colored flesh of the prickly pear can be sliced or c...
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Patty Pan or Scallop Squash
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Patty pan or scallop squash is a small, saucer-shaped warm-season squash that usually grows to no more than 3 to 4 inches in diameter. Patty pan squashes look something like a toy top. They can be white to creamy colored or various shades of green or yellow. Patty pans are less moist than other summer squashes such as zucchini. They actually gro...
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Costata Romanesca Squash
by
Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
Costata Romanesca is an heirloom Italian squash often considered the best tasting and best textured summer squash. It is sometimes called cocozelle or ribbed Roman zucchini. It is also called courgette, marrow squash, and vegetable marrow.Costata Romanesca is an elongated squash with a dark green skin marked by greenish-yellow stripes that run i...
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Zephyr Squash
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Steve ..
Posted in: Blog Posts in Healthy Eating
'Zephyr' is a straightneck summer squash. 'Zephyr' has a yellow stem end and is pale green at the blossom end. Faint white stripes run the length of this squash. ( Learn more about summer squash click here.)Zephyr is a cross between the Delicata and yellow Acorn squashes with a slightly crooked neck about 5 to 8 inches (13-20 cm) long. You can h...
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