Treviso

We were lucky to be in the Veneto this fall at the perfect time to enjoy Treviso tardivo (late harvest radicchio). Venetian restaurants feature grilled radicchio that looks like something from another planet, much like romanesco, which was also in season.

Radicchio has been around since ancient times. Described by Pliny in his Naturalis Historia, radicchio was first bred by the Egyptians from chicory as a blood purifier and cure for insomnia. It’s a part of the composite family.

In the 19^th century a whitening technique called imbianchiamento was invented by Francesco van den Borre, a Belgian gardener working in the Veneto who used techniques for whitening Belgian Endive to create the white veins on the red leaves of Radicchio Rose di Treviso.

Imbianchimento is an elaborate and fascinating process. The radicchio plants are harvested with a special machine and then packed into baskets made of wire mesh which get stored in dark sheds. Spring water is circulated at a temperature of sixty degrees, and this is what gives the plants their red color. Some radicchio is finished in warm sand beds.

Here in the U.S. we’re mostly familiar with the tightly wound spheres of deep purple red radicchio the size of a grapefruit. These varieties are Rosso di Chioggia and Radicchio di Verona. Italy takes agriculture seriously and there is a certification called indicazione geografica protetta. IDG follows the names of "protected" varieties.

Radicchio di Castelfranco IDG (green and white with bright red variegation) is a cross between escarole and Rosso di Treviso IDG. Other varieties include Radicchio di Maserà and Radicchio di Lusià and Rosso di Verona IDG.

I look forward to planting some radicchio in our garden this summer, if only to take me back to our wonderful trip and the boxes of Treviso in the markets. The photo of the box of romanesco, asparagus and cauliflower was taken at the Mercato Centrale, in Florence (above).

Fall Planting

We had gorgeous October weather today for planting next year's garlic and finishing up some other chores around the farm. It's hard to say whether or not we'll get a real Indian Summer, so I thought I'd better take advantage of what might be a last spell of warm enough temperatures for working outside comfortably.

I'm so happy to have three varieties of garlic in the ground. We are doing less than last year as I just can't keep up with the product and I'd really like to have more real estate in the garden next summer for other crops. We planted up the soft-neck which was new to us this year, Kettle River Giant, as well as German Extra Hardy and Korean Red.

Everything is pretty much picked now and out of the ground. Winter Rye is beginning to come up in some of the boxes and now we've sown some more. Others are just getting more compost and then hay on top. I'm already thinking about what I'd like to plant in the empty boxes in the spring and early summer. Thinking about this over the winter is great therapy.

Back to the kitchen! We have a big sink full of our very last beets of the year. Even I am tiring of this vegetable which is one of my favorites. Bee's Wing Farm had a year of beets for 2009. I also pulled some stray leeks and the remainder of the celeriac; there are definitely some yummy soups in our near future.

There was a small patch of baby fennel which I seeded mid-summer just to use up a package of seed. It didn't really have time to grow, but I can still use it for seasoning. Fennel reminds me so much of Italy -- the way it flavors everything around it. I remember the figs and lettuce in Tuscany tasting of wild fennel.

Here's to autumn and all the harvest -- and to planning next year's garden over a cozy winter.

First Snow of the Season

We had a lovely first snowfall this morning, just enough to remind us how much we're still hoping for an Indian Summer. We really need some warm days to finish up a few farm and garden chores before the ground freezes. There's still plenty to do before the real cold arrives, and it's been a busy fall.

Out in the garden, raised bed repairs have taken place and we've sewn winter rye in the old potato boxes. Next spring we'll give the potatoes and pumpkins a brand new location while we give the cover crops a chance to do their thing.

I like the idea of growing our own composting "hay" for mulching the beds throughout the seasons. We've used the garlic leaves quite successfully for creating weed barriers, but the grasses do a lot more for the soil. Considering my last blog post was all about weeds, however, we're taking easy on the winter rye and seeing how it performs before we go too wild with this idea.

Here in New England, talk at this time of year is all about wood, heat and snow tires. Thanks to the help of friends and our strapping fourteen-year old boy, our wood is mostly stacked. We use the screened porch as a wood shed in the winter months and then have extra cords along the back wall of a carriage house. There are still some four footers that need cutting, but we're nearly there. A few nice weekends would go a long way.

Yesterday I picked another big batch of beets, but there are still more to harvest. I'd also like to get more thyme and sage picked to dry along with our rosemary that we grow indoors year-round. Last week I picked a bushel of cilantro just before the frost and made a coriander pesto with cauliflower and lots of garlic. We'll use this for Indian dishes throughout the winter. Harvest is definitely an intense time and I'm realizing I do much better with small batches rather than having hundreds and hundreds of beets and potatoes to deal with all at once, etc.

Or thousands. All that garlic curing out in the barn still needs to be bundled and labeled, plus we need to sort out the largest bulbs and figure out how much we want to plant for next year. I think rather than focusing on marketing the garlic, we may scale back and diversify our own kitchen gardening to have more of a variety for next year. We'll still do plenty of garlic, but right now I can't deal with the volume and still enjoy the whole thing.

This reminds me, we've still got a box of celeriac to pull! I'd like to get that in before the greens are too bitter for soup stock. Tonight we have two chickens to roast so we can get a few soups going over the weekend; it's that kind of weather. Indian Summer or no, this is a beautiful place to live with so much variety in the climate. Come February we'll be ready for palm trees, but right now I'm glad to feel the fall and winter weather coming our way.

Weeds

We awoke to lovely crisp cool weather this morning, the perfect day to get some much-needed weeding out of the way. I have never seen anything like the crabgrass this year -- it seems to grow overnight. Fortunately it's not difficult to pull as the ground is so wet; I just wish we put more down more mulch when we harvested the garlic last month.

Clearly all the grasses love the extremely wet summer we've had this year. For one reason or another we haven't been on top of the mowing between the vegetable boxes, and the top-seeding is definitely a factor along with all the rain. I am looking into other sources of much, including Mainely Mulch, a high temperature heat processed, dehydrated, sterilized straw and hay mulch product that my friend Anne told me about. It's expensive, but I think I'll give a couple of bales a try.

Grass is not our only invader. We have a lot of volunteer Morning Glories and I have let them go wild even at the cost of a few onions here and there. They loved those leek stalks and the vines really do take over, but I simply can't pull a Morning Glory. Lots of Sunflowers came up here and there, both in the vegetable beds and the perennial garden -- and some Cosmos, too. I let those grow in place even though some of those beds are really very crowded now. Still, I love the idea of the the wind and small animals helping to inform the garden.

Our domesticated small animals are giving us a lot of trouble. The older dog, Willow, got into a porcupine and we pulled twenty-six quills in the middle of the night, and a few days later the small dog found a skunk under our screened porch. There are lots of creatures looking for homes in or near our house and barn, and the dogs are crazed with trying to catch them. I imagine it's mostly moles or voles (hoping for the former rather than the latter). Really we just wish the dogs would stop this incessant hunting. And there's no room for skunks or porcupines here. Please!

Days like this one remind me that the best really is yet to come. Here in New England the cooler sunshine-filled days and clear blue sky make fall a wonderful time to work outdoors. And no bugs! I'm looking forward to spending more time in the garden, at least between rain showers. It looks as though another storm is coming in right now. We are experts at opening and closing all the window's at a moment's notice, so I think I'd better go tend to that before it's too late.

Happy weeding!

Harvest Time

It seems early this year, but we've had such a wet summer that the garlic is really ready to come out of the ground. The trick is to leave it in long enough to achieve a good-sized bulb but to harvest soon enough so that it doesn't begin to break down. Each leaf represents a wrapper around the bulb; this is what helps the garlic keep throughout the winter.

We've harvested three varieties now, and they are all looking good. We switched the cleaning process this year to the front-end, so bundling and labeling should be a snap when the time comes. Our hottest garlic last year was the Korean Red, and today was the day for getting that into the barn for curing. This garlic has a smaller bulb with a snazzy wrapper, and it's still my favorite.

The softneck experiment recommended by our friends at Rosebud seems to have gone very well. The cloves are large and well-formed. This was the first variety to harvest and we're glad we got it out of the ground when we did. We'll likely save back quite a bit of this Kettle River to replant for next year as it seemed to fare well even in all the rain.

Next up is the German White. There are four long 16' x 4' beds of this old stand-by, and we're hoping to get all the garlic in over the next few days. Rain is in the air once again, and it will be good to have everything safe and sound out in the barn.

Calling All Chefs….

Green garlic is vogue these days in culinary circles, perhaps due in part to a New York Times article published last year. Most of the garlic at Bee’s Wing Farm is grown for the garlic bulbs we’ll harvest this summer, but I couldn’t resist doing a little thinning and getting on the green garlic bandwagon.

Quite simply, green garlic is just garlic that hasn’t begun to form cloves yet. Garlic is such a beautiful plant, and green garlic is harvested when the dark green leaves are still tender. The whole plant can be used for cooking; the flavor is milder than mature garlic and stronger than green onions.

We are using green garlic stalks much like the giant scallions they resemble. The pale white bulb is trimmed at the root end and chopped up along with the tender part of the green leaves. The fresh taste just out of the garden is delicious. I think we’ll try braising as well.

Here in New Hampshire, the hardneck garlic hasn’t even begun to think about scaping yet, but that will be our next adventure. Garlic scapes taste remarkably like green beans, but they are beautifully-spiraled and make for an elegant addition to any plate.

Luna Moth

We found this beautiful luna moth (Actias Luna) billowing on the end of a fern. It must have just been born; it's wings were soft and crumpled. The moth sheds its skin five times before reaching adulthood. I love the beautiful color of these creatures who only fly at night and live for just about a week.

The female luna moth lays eggs the size of the head of a pin on the leaves of trees. They especially like walnut leaves, and they lay their eggs in small groups. Ten days later the caterpillars eat their way out of the eggs. The newborns eat leaves constantly until they split their skin and then they stop and make a cocoon by secreting a sticky thread. They wind the thread round and round, wrapping themselves up with a leaf pulled around the outside. After a week the moth emerges from its cocoon.

Along with luna moths, dragonflies have also begun to arrive -- true signs of summer. I had one land on my shoulder yesterday and it stayed for a long time. My grandmother always called them darning needles. We love their glittering wings and especially appreciate the way they gobble up mosquitoes. A gardener's friend!