Garden Oddities

I've been collecting photos of odd flowers and vegetables for a while. I'm not sure why it never occurred to me to post some of them. So here's a post on "garden oddities". If possible, I'll have to make this a recurring topic (plus there are never-ending ugly tomatoes to share).

Unique foliage:

This is how Red Russian Kale leaves normally look:

I found this interesting specimen in the garden this spring. It seems to be extra frilly. I suppose I could save the seeds from this plant and see if it is a stable trait.

Albino plants:

The white leaf on this cucumber could be chlorosis, but it seems completely isolated to the first true leaf.

This snow pea came up completely chlorotic. It eventually died, but I'm surprised it survived long enough to develop as many leaves as it did.

Ugly Tomatoes:

This Japanese Black Trifele is naturally triangular shaped, but the blossom end of this one turned out particularly bizarre. It vaguely reminds me of the 'E Puribus Anus' school logo from the television show Community.

Although I love heirlooms, sometimes they're just a bit ridiculous. This particular fruit grew as several separate lobes all connected to the same stem. As you can see, the lobes are ripening at different rates. You'd have to do minor surgery on this thing before you could actually eat it.

Conjoined Tomatoes:

Here's another Japanese Black Trifele, but this time it has a strange growth near the stem end. 

This is perhaps my favorite odd tomato I've ever grown...because it looks like a red rubber ducky.

Harvests

I've been doing a little harvesting every day lately. I'm getting tons of cucumbers, a few zucchinis (those that haven't succumbed to drought-induced yellowy wrinkle disease), basil, and potatoes. I can almost taste the tomatoes, but I've still only gotten one ripe one.

This is the first broccoli crown I've ever grown (not due to a lack of trying). Unfortunately, it's only about 3 inches across.

Fava beans, West Indian Gherkin, Suyo Long cucumber, White Wonder cucumber, and Lemon cucumber. Most of these went into the slowly evolving pickle bowl in the fridge.

Any suggestions on what to do with these West Indian Gherkins? They are painful to the touch and I can't quite figure out how you are supposed to eat the without peeling them. They're so small that there wouldn't be much left after peeling. I guess I could lob them my enemies! 

I finally got around to digging all of my Red Norland potatoes. The plants have long since died, but the potatoes happily waited for me all cozy in the ground.

Cucumbers Coming In

It has been fun watching the Suyo Long cucumbers develop into all sorts of silly shapes.

Lemon cucumber. I didn't have much luck with these last year, so the fact that I've even harvested two this year is a good sign.

Suyo Long cucumber. These supposedly taste good (and aren't too seedy) even when they get much large than this. I saw some vendors at the farmer's market selling some enormous specimens.

West Indian Gherkin. These are not turning out to be what I was expecting! I guess there's a big difference between West Indian Gherkin and Mexican Sour Gherkin. Oh well, I bet they'll still be good!

White Wonder Cucumber

The cucumbers are starting to size up. Hopefully I'll get a few this year before the plants get diseased and peter out on me.

I picked my first cucumber of the season recently (it was a 'White Wonder') and made a delicious simple salad with dill, rice vinegar, and olive oil dressing.

Keeping Up With My Speed-Of-Light Life

I've been up to all kinds of gardening and cooking-related mischief late last week and over this weekend! Hopefully I'll have time to write about it all soon.

In the meantime, here's a quick rundown of what I've been doing and making:

• Acted as a tomato matchmaker (I can't wait to share this with you)
• Foraged for about 9 pounds of wild black raspberries (and I have the scratches to prove it)
• Scouted out some potential wild grape foraging locations
• Pitted cherries (I don't even want to know how many more pounds I have done)
• Made both black-raspberry and black-cherry vinegar
• Made both black-raspberry and black-cherry shrub
• Made both black-raspberry and black-cherry jam
• Made both black-raspberry apple and black-cherry apple crumble (can you guess what I'm overloaded with?)
• Made a yummy garden cucumber salad
• Collected an egg that I highly suspect to be a double-yolker (we'll see)
• Started hand pollinating my hard-shelled gourds (it's a nightly ritual)
• Ate the first fava bean of my life (and I don't appear to suffer from favism)
• Got a great idea for a new blog (that may or may not come to fruition)

Starting Squashy Crops

I put my first seedlings in the ground this weekend (mizuna and cilantro)! I also direct sowed snow peas, daikon radish, lettuce, spinach, and onion sets.

On top of that, I also started all my squashy-crops (pumpkin, watermelon, melon, zucchini, scallopini, cucumber, and ornamental gourd) and some fava beans and cat grass.

Mizuna

Cilantro

A variety of cucumbers, and squashes sown into peat pellets for easy transplanting.

Refrigerator Pickles

These crisp and garlicky pickles are fast and delicious and don't require any canning skills. They will keep in the fridge for at least a week, but I doubt they'll last that long.

Ingredients:

Cucumbers: either hothouse cucumbers (the shrink-wrapped kind from the store), or homegrown

Rice Vinegar: a.k.a. sushi vinegar (I prefer this to most other vinegars)

Dill: fresh or dried (I dried some store-bought dill in my dehydrator)

Garlic

Salt

Pepper

Sugar

Instructions:

Slice the cucumber very thinly and put in a bowl. Barely cover with vinegar. Chop up garlic and dill (if using fresh dill). Combine garlic, dill, garlic, salt, and sugar (to taste) with the cucumber and vinegar. The amount of sugar you use depends on how sweet (use more) or vinegary (use less) you want your pickles. The pickles will be ready in as little as an hour, but they are best if you let them sit overnight in the fridge.