Pickled Young Cabbage Leaves

My garden has been doing its thing, as you can see here and here, and about a week ago was high time for thinning out the red cabbage. I'm a big fan of thinning! Not only does it make the remaining plants grow faster and healthier by removing competition, but I get to eat baby greens!!! 

Instead of eating these greens, as I've been doing with the chard, beets and mizuna, I wanted to indulge my infatuation with vinegar-pickled veggies. A search on the internet led to my realizing that although many many people pickle cabbage (usually using lacto-fermentation, but that's a whole other post!), no-one seems to be interested in pickling the tender early leaves. Or at least not anyone I could find. So I started doing the next best thing... experimenting!  I used this recipe as a basis for my vinegar mixture and method, then added and changed ratios to compliment the mild sweetness of the young cabbage leaves.

(Click through for the recipe!)

My Garden Grows - Part 2

Since the garden is doing so well, I thought I'd post some new photos of its progress. I'm happy with all of it except that the garlic and onions seem to be having a poor year. I've tried fertilizing and keeping up with watering, but they seem to have stopped growing. I'll wait and see! Otherwise everything looks beautiful and we found our first baby sugar-snap pea yesterday! 

 

The sugar-snap peas taking advantage of the trellis. I love these sweet curly tendrils!

The red beets and carrots are coming right along. I've been thinning them a little at a time so we can eat the tender greens in salads and stir-fries.

I'm especially happy with these tomatillo plants we got from Stoney Plains Organic Farm at the Wallingford Farmers Market. We've only had them a few weeks and they've shot up to over 2 feet tall with tons of blossoms!

These sweet mizuna blossoms are great in salads!

Marigolds are helping deter nematodes and flying insects while they attract slugs and snails away from the other plants.

I love that our garden is attracting so many pollinators.

And on that beautiful note, adieu!

Cold Blooded Killer

Gardening has changed me. And I don't mean that it has tied me closer with the soil or given me a greater appreciation for the work that goes into producing my food, although those things could be said as well. No, I'm referring to the unfortunate fact that gardening has turned me into a cold blooded killer. It's true. I've taken to stalking the garden just after dusk with a flashlight and a yogurt container, picking slugs and snails off my precious leaves. I'll spare you the details of what happens next, but rest assured that the crows have been eating really well. There have been slugs floating in beer traps, hopefully not agonizingly burned by the salt rings I've put around the basil pots (but if so, they really should know better than to slither into salt!) and painfully insulted when my temper gets the better of my tongue. And in case you didn't already know this, I am the girl who takes spiders out to the yard and ushers flies out the front door to avoid killing them! The love of my vegetables has turned me into a crazy killer. 

My poor basil was being devoured by tiny slugs!

Here are some things I've learned from trial and error as well as talking to some farmers at the farmers market.

• Marigolds planted around and amongst vegetables will deter some flying pests and nematodes. However, slugs and snails LOVE them. This could be good or bad. The slimy little buggers definitely zone in on the marigolds, so it's possible that they will leave the other vegetables mostly alone. Or this could be drawing them into the veggie beds when they wouldn't have shown up in the first place. Hard to say, but for their other pest-deterring properties I think Marigolds are a good integrated pest management (IPM) technique.   

(Click through for more!)