What do You Get When You Cross a Turnip With a Cabbage?

The rutabagas are one of a few veggies that did absolutely awesome in the E.S. Garden this year. They have been poking out of the soil like this for quite some time now but we were waiting for a frost to pluck any of them up to devour. They always taste much better after a good frost has hit.
Now, you may be thinking, "what the heck can I do with a rutabaga?" They are a bit obscure in mainstream cooking so I am always trying to find new ways to prepare the rutabaga. One of my favorite ways to cook them is to mix them with potatoes and make a mashed rutabaga/potato mixture. It's extremely simple to make.

Jess' Rutabaga/Potato Mixture o' Deliciousness

- a few potatoes
- a few rutabagas
(usually about half and half is what I like to do)
- cook them like you would cook potatoes to mash them
- add some milk and butter or whatever you like to add to your potatoes
- salt, pepper and some parsley
- mmm, mmm, you're good to go!

Any other favorite rutabaga recipes out there? Shoot em' my way, I'm always looking for ways to cook them, and as you can see we have quite a few to use for experiments!

Fall Update

Cosmos Bipinnatus

Here in Upstate New York we have had quite the "summer". Lots of rain, hail, below average temperatures, sogginess, blight, mosquitoes, flooding...ahhhhhhh!
But fear not, all hope was not lost, and there were some beauties to keep us smiling!

Tithonia Rotundiflora - Mexican Sunflower

Ipomoea alba - Moonflower

I started the Mexican sunflowers over at the Apartment Garden and replanted them after I moved. They took some time adjusting to outdoor garden life, but soon they started budding like crazy and not long after that the beautiful orange flowers were all over the yard.
Moonflowers are easy to grow and have such a beautiful color to them. I love purple flowers and this is definitely one my favorites. We have them trailing up trees all over the garden.

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes

Despite the tomato blight that has destroyed thousands of tomato plants and has virtually killed many tomato farmer's crops, our plants overall came out OK. We had more cherry tomatoes than we knew what to do with! I think I had cherry tomatoes for every meal of the day a few times.

Our basil also did wonderfully. We made lots of pesto, basil pizzas, basil and greens salads. I probably love the smell of basil more than I enjoy the taste so I definitely sat down in the middle of the basil patch a few times this season and just smelled and smelled and smelled. Ahhhh....

And now...for the not so good...

poor little cucumbers (they should be green, by the way)

The E.S. Garden is set up in a way where about a third of the garden is sloped down and is in the lowest part of the yard. Most summers this isn't an issue because usually we're dealing with a drought, or at least a severely decreased amount of water. This year, however, (and last year for that matter) we were wet for almost the entire summer. Just to get an idea of how soaked we got this summer, here's a breakdown of the number of days it rained (and by rained I mean more than a trace, I left out the days that it still rained but not enough to measure) :

14 days of rain - June
18 days of rain - July
9 days of rain - August

July? Are you for real? 18 days of rain? That would mean we had 13 days of no rain. Which isn't to say sun. Because the number of actual sunny days, I'm sure, hovered around five or six. Yes that is pathetic. That is why we have poor cucumbers like the one pictured above. And why our tomato plants look like this far earlier than they should:


So I suppose after seeing our pathetic sunshine forecast for the summer, I can understand why we suffered in the veggie area. Other than tomatoes and basil we had a great crop of swiss chard, our rutabagas are blasting right out of the soil and are almost ready to enjoy. (My favorite way to eat rutabagas is with mashed potatoes. Mash them both together, mmmm delicious!), our other herbs did very well and so did some of our peppers. The carrots came out great and this year we even had some red ones come up in our mixed variety! The flowers also faired well, overall, especially the sunflowers. I think they didn't mind the rain as much as our veggies.

September is coming to a close so normally we would be waiting for our crops of squash, pumpkins and other root vegetables. Unfortunately our squash plants were some of the first to go to the squishy, squishy pile. The delacotas and winter squash were planted at the very bottom of the garden and were rotten very early on. Our pumpkins went the same route and we did not plant any potatoes this year. So we're waiting on our trusted rutabagas and we're already chowing down on our fall crop of greens, spinach and carrots.

I'm sorry, I've been keeping promises like a middle school girl as far as my blog posts are concerned. Thanks for not breaking up with me or telling me we can't be friends or beating me up in gym class. I appreciate that.

Dear rain: Get over yourself

I am taking it as a good sign that I've never really heard about this crazy, destructive disease of the tomato plant. As the article says, the rain has helped spread the disease quickly. However, it is worth pointing out that the magnitude of the spread is largely due to the fact that many plants come from the same large grower and supply to places like Walmart and Kmart. Making it much easier for the disease to spread from plant to plant as they sit in humugo greenhouses.
Another reason to buy local, friends.

Yes, I can appreciate all the wonderful things the rain does for us. We wouldn't survive without it. But daaamn it was 69 yesterday and it has rained something like 20 out of the last 25 days.

On a positive note, the rain has forced me to stay inside and get things done that need I to do. There's a big change a comin' for the Apartment Garden...oh yes...

Little green balls of yum!

While I was out planting some new seeds* on the Apartment Garden porch today, I noticed our tomato plant has signs of yummy deliciousness!


I was given this plant from the girl downstairs...originally I wasn't planning on having any tomatoes because the E.S. Garden has enough for an army. So I don't even know if these are cherry or if they'll get to be humugo. Hopefully the former because the plant grew in a bit sparse and probably wouldn't be able to stand up to any mammoth tomates.

It was a great weekend to garden here in upstate NY! The E.S. Garden got a good working out of me, although I forget to bring along a picture shooter so no updates on that end. But check Flickr because the Apartment Garden has a nice update!

*I'm venturing into uncharted territory now...I planted some pumpkins and cucumbers. I babied them hardcore with compost and organic fertilizer, my fingers are crossed! We'll see how they do growing in a pot on a porch!