Daughter E was keeping me company in the Pickle Lab yesterday while I peeled and chopped turnips for another batch of Torshi Left. We couldn’t get over the size of the turnips! These did not grow at Curious Farm, but I realize that perhaps I should give ours much more room so that they can grow this big, too!
Do you have this growing in your yard, too? It’s called bittercress or popweed, and I love it in salads. We’re going to eat this particular lovely and a few of her friends tomorrow night. It tastes like watercress or arugula, and it is a wild brassica (cousin to broccoli and cabbage). The texture — raw, in salads — is springy and fun.
Look! The lovage is peeking up (red spears below) — just in time for Spring!
And Hello, Rhubarb!
This is its first full year here, and it’s growing nicely on the herbal lawn with the clover, yarrow, and dandelions. Someday its proud red stalks will be a structural element in the front yard — and a pickling ingredient, too.
Happy almost spring!
first brave little ‘spergus reaches for the sun!
I really enjoyed reading this blog post from Gathering Together Farm about seeding onions. It’s fun to see behind the scenes at a farm and to see an electric seeder machine up close.
Now I would like to show you how Curious Farm seeds leeks:
Using our favorite tool — benign neglect — we allow some of our leeks to bolt and flower. We say it’s for the bees. Bees love onion and leek flowers. Did you know that?
Then the flowers dry up and fall over, get rained on, and become papery skeletons of their former selves.
Then one day in winter, we go outside to put some dried leaves and other garden debris in the compost pile. When we pick up the leek flower, we see the seedlings growing right there where the dead flower fell over — hundreds of them, just from one of last year’s forgotten flowers.
In a few days, we will separate these hair-like leek seedlings and replant them in a new bed. Many will survive and produce beautiful leeks. Because this seed grew on its own from leeks that were happy in our soil, they’ll have an even better chance of growing well than other leek seedlings.
Curious Farm : we take lazy gardening to new heights.
I never get tired of the magic of fermenting vegetables. Today I uncrocked a batch of Classic Sauerkraut that’s been fermenting since September. It’s “just cabbage,” but tastes rich, sweet, sour, with a wine-like depth and so much umami.
Cabbage + salt + time = sauerkraut. The sum is always more than the parts. And I don’t do the fermenting, either. The vegetables do it themselves. I just create the safe environment so that it can happen.
It’s fun to look inside other peoples’ refrigerators, isn’t it? Here is the Curious Farm pickle fridge — specifically the fridge that stores the sauerkrauts and all that are ready for Market.
The Harvest Market is tomorrow, and I’m very excited to see everyone there again. I hope you’ll come down. As you can see from the photo, Curious Farm has made the switch back to glass. Next year, everything will be sold in glass again, and I’ll find other uses for the eco-friendly compostable deli containers I used for most of this year. Glass has its challenges, too, but we’ll move forward with glass in any case.
Look at those jars… so much love inside each one. Can you imagine what the Pickle Lab smells like when I’m shredding 40 – 50 pounds of sweet, green cabbage? Or the leeks from Sweetrock Farm? Or what it smells like when I’m peeling 8 heads of garlic for a batch of kimchi? It’s magic and medicine. Plucking dill seed for the cucumber pickles always makes me feel washed clean… the aroma of dill just refreshes the spirit.
It’s true that cabbages, cucumbers and other vegetables talk to me. I was going to make kraut out of the kohlrabi grown by Galin-Flory Farms, but the crunchy brassica spaceships told me that they wanted to be a pickle instead. There was an awful day when I went to visit a produce stand with my mother and saw glorious, huge, vibrant cabbages that were screaming at me to turn them into sauerkraut. I went over to talk to them, and I tried not to cry. Sweetly, I explained that all of my fermenting vessels were full, and I couldn’t take them home. I told them I knew that other sauerkraut makers would be coming by today to scoop them up and let them ferment. I firmly believe that all cabbages grow up dreaming of becoming sauerkraut. Left to their own devices, they would ferment naturally. It is what they want to do, thank goodness.
This year, my customers surprised and encouraged me. Thank you. You know so much about the health benefits of these traditional, live-cultured foods! Some of you came to the booth every week or every other week, steadily encouraging me. You gave compliments that made me blush. You went out of your way to bring Curious Farm products to people you love. Some of you even became addicted to kimchi this year!
When people ask about my new business, I always mention my customers. Pickle lovers are spirited, opinionated folks, and you didn’t fail me. I heard plenty of constructive criticism: “More garlic!” “Too spicy!” “More heat!” “More dill!” “I don’t know… that’s kinda weird…”
I listened to it all, and I learned so much. Thank you.
I can’t wait for next May, when the Market starts up again! See you tomorrow…
My daughter thinks kohlrabi looks like a space ship or an alien. She loves it, though. Crunchy, fresh, sweeter than a turnip, and with a cleaner taste than a broccoli stalk.
This week at the Beaverton Farmers Market, Curious Farm will offer Sour Kohlrabi Pickle for the first time. If you loved the Sour Turnips, I think you’ll like these, too. They’re less pungent but maybe more addictive.
The kohlrabi was grown by Galin-Flory Farms. They’re next to us at the Market, and they’re growing some delicious, gorgeous vegetables and berries. Every Saturday it’s such an inspiration to see the rainbow of bounty they bring.