Winter garden journal: And the beet goes on...

If we do not get beets from our CSA box, we will (hopefully) get beets from our new “cool season” garden. Almost all the vegetables are up and running, or climbing if we’re talking about the snap peas. And we still have the fava bean seeds and fennel seeds under ground working hard to sprout stems and roots.

The cool season growers are: (in no particular order, though I do favor the fennel :)

Fennel
Fava beans
Sugar snap peas
Beets
Broccoli
Oregano
Aloe vera-planted to add all-year greenness to the garden

It was a difficult decision selecting the right vegetables for the winter garden. There was many a quarrel between Tyler and me at the garden center regarding our choices.

“Let’s get some broccoli and beets. Mmmm beets.” Says Tyler

“But we don’t have enough room to plant 6 broccoli. Besides I already made a list of the plants I want.” Snarks Marci

“Broccoli would be so cool to see grow though. We can plant them all in the same big pot.” Pleads Tyler

“We don’t have a big enough pot for them…well, just buy them and you can take care of the broccoli then.” Acquiesces Marci


So I thought, okay, now it is Tyler’s responsibility to care for the broccoli and if he over crowds them in a small pot, then I tried to warn him. Low and behold, 2 days later as we were getting out of the car in the parking garage I spotted a huge ceramic pot sitting next to the recycle bin. Hoorah! Problem solved for the broccoli and I was secretly happy Tyler bought all the broccoli. Yay for dumpster diving.


The sugar snap peas are my favorite to watch grow so far. They wind their green tentacles up the twine and hook on to each other for support. They have already grown a couple inches in only a week and a half! Tyler came up with the idea of bending a wire hanger into a diamond shape and tying 4 pieces a twine to it, one on each corner. The twine hangs down to the peas and loosely tie each piece of twine to the 4 plants. Then the peas can have ample space to climb onwards and upwards without cramping any other plants style.


This is the first time I have ever grown any of this plants. Will they get enough sun? Will I over water them? Will the plump green worms return and devour the leaves?

We’ll see, and that’s the fun of it!

Marci

Word of advice: Don't write your blog post in Word and copy and paste it. It doesn't transfer over to blogspot and it takes up lots of time to fix. :(

First Fall Meal: Roasted Vegetables with Pork Tenderloin

To me, fall cooking means savory, hearty, warm, filling and slowed down. Days are shorter with evening's darkness falling around 5pm. Senior special dinner anyone?

Growing up, my parents always had the dinner on the table at 5pm. My dad rolled in from work and...bam! we were all settled and ready to eat. When the weekend finally arrived my dad always made up some slow cooked, hearty meals like beef stew. So when I noticed this week that the days were colder and night was falling early I thought I would bust out a simple fall meal that pleases all. (well at least Tyler and me)

Roasted Vegetables with Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:

5 carrots
1 sweet potato
3 rutabagas
2 onions
1 tablespoon of rosemary
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Sprinkles of salt
Twists of pepper grinder
1-2 lbs pork tenderloin
Pork tenderloin marinade

Prepare pork tenderloin marinade and put in large plastic bag with pork tenderloin. Mix together and place in refrigerator to marinate for 1-2 hours.
With 30 minutes remaining to finish marinating the pork, preheat oven to 350F degrees. Cut all vegetables into 1/2" pieces and place in 13X9" glass pan. Chop up rosemary and sprinkle over vegetables along with salt, pepper and olive oil. Mix everything together. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove roasted veggie dish and place pork tenderloin in middle, surrounded by the veggies. Return dish to oven and cook for an additional 25 minutes, or until pork is done.

Good way to use root vegetables from CSA box! You can use potatoes, yams or squash too.

Bon appetit!

Marci

P.S. Our pumpkins only lured 3 trick-or-treaters this Halloween. One for each pumpkin I suppose. There was even a Luke Skywalker to match Tyler's Yoda pumpkin. I don't think the boy understood who Yoda was when I mentioned his friend was one of the carved pumpkins though.