Winter Sown - Jump starting Spring

This is the time of  year I really start driving my husband crazy.  I do it by collecting milk jugs.  Huh?  That right, I start collecting milk jugs right after New Years so that I can do my gardening.  What?  Remember I live just a bit north of Minneapolis, MN in zone 4b.  We have about 12 to 16 inches of snow on the ground right about now. I am not cray cray, I am winter sowing.  Last year I did 104 containers of vegetables, perennials and hardy annuals.  You can do the opaque milk jugs, large soda bottles, plastic fast food container, or cottage cheese tubs with clear or opaque lids.  I also used tin roasters from the dollars store, in the above picture you can see them.  The tins started with plastic lids but due to a late spring snow storm that dumped us with about a foot of heavy snow they didn't last and I ended up putting the roaster tins in plastic bags.  I did my tins two different ways as well, one I just put the dirt in it and plant, the other I took small Styrofoam coffee cups and made individual plantings.  Well just putting the dirt in the tin pan worked out way better than the Styrofoam cups did.  Which leads me to my best advice for those thinking about trying this method of jump starting their spring.  Use the KISS technique when Winter Sowing, that is Keep it Simple Stupid.  I put way to much thought and energy into some of these containers only to find the ones where I kept it simple did the best.  At the end of this article I will post a link to the WinterSown website, where they have some great tutorials on how to winter sow.

There just one more additional caution I'd like to express here.  This can be an addictive hobby and it can easily get out of control.  Please note below is a picture of my drive way this past spring.  Sixty gallon milk jugs and then additional forty or so assorted containers, for a whopping 104 containers in my driveway.  In my best Jeff Foxworthy voice "You might be a gardener if you start digging in your neighbor's recycle bins for milk jugs.  You might be a gardener if your driveway in the spring looks like you had a Milk party last night."  Please feel free to add more "you might be a gardener one liners in the comments below.

Helpful links for those looking to get into WinterSowing WinterSowing Web site - http://www.wintersown.org/
WinterSower Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/102675420505/
Article from Minnesota Horticultural Society on Winter Sowing -http://blog.northerngardener.org/day-14-winter-sowing-for-your-vegetable-garden/
and best of all - Plant list for Winter Sowing - http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/Seed_Lists.html

Decision of Tomato Plants

Garden Planning Session

Last year I was pretty lucky, my husband made me six raised 3' X 8' X 24" high beds.  I loved them!  I was out in the backyard everyday of the week!  As the temperature drops to -20 below these next couple of days, now is the time to dream of the garden, reflect on what worked and plan for this summer.  Last year's garden had its successes and failures.  I put in a squash arch and it was crazy successful and I will do it again.  But lets be honest here, Tomatoes are the kings of the garden and pepper plants coming in a close second.  So planning you tomato crop is important business.  I planted 30 tomato plants last year all of them indeterminate tomato varieties, some successful some not. Hear is a quick review of last years tomatoes.

• Roma Tomatoes - I grew three different types of Roma tomatoes Speckled Roman, Amish Paste and San Marzano Tomatoes.  
• Oxheart's Tomatoes - I'm not doing any paste tomatoes this coming year as I kind of fell in love with the Oxheart type tomatoes.  The Oxheart Tomatoes I did were the Anna Russian, Japanese Trifele and a Giant Syrian.  All had great flavor for slicing as well for making tomato paste.  So out with the Roma's, if I can get a tomato to do double and triple duty that the tomato I'll grown.  
• Slicing Tomatoes - Slicing tomatoes are essential, there are very few things that taste as good as a BLT sandwich with a fresh sliced tomato on it.  Last year's slicing tomatoes were Defiant, New Girl and a Pink Brandywine all from Johnny Seeds.  The Defiant was a big disappointment as it claim to have a high resistance to late blight and intermediate resistance to early blight.  It missed the early blight but was hit hard with the late blight and was a very late producers.  It promised to be a 70 day tomato plant and with the late snow last year everything ran a bit late, but these tomatoes were the latest to ripen.  As far as taste?  Well they didn't really have any.  They were small tomatoes as well kind of a cross between a cherry and a regular tomato.  For these reasons I'll not be purchasing anymore of these seeds.  I will plant a Brandywine and Early Girl just for those BLT's. 
• Cherry Tomatoes -  I had Bellstar, Alaska, Alaska Fancy, Riesentraube, and Stupice.  This was way too many cherry tomato plants but some of them were gifts and some recommended as "Cold Climate" tomatoes.  The Bellstar ripened first but everyone agree this was a horrible tasting tomato.  It had a tough skin and a nasty point on the end that no one found pleasant.  The Alaska and Alaska Fancy eh, they probably make a great patio cherry plant as they were small and really didn't need any staking what so ever, but again they didn't have much taste.  The Riesentraube and the Stupice are still in the running.    

Now if this sounds like I  grew a lot tomatoes, it wasn't a lot, just 29 plants.  Which may have been caused some of the problems I had last year.  In one raised

Walkway between tomato bed

bed I had eight tomato plants, in the bed next to it I had another six, on one the end of the arch I had five, off to the side in my flowers bed I had three, there were another three in containers and the 10 tomato plants that I thought were Marigolds plants that when I figure out they were tomatoes I whittled them down to four.  Simply put, I had too many tomatoes in the raised beds, and had a hard time turning away a health tomato plant.  As you can see in the picture on the right, these beds were so overgrown it was hard to get between the two beds.  The plan this year is no more than one tomato plant every two feet in the raised beds. Another problem I had was I never seemed to get enough tomatoes to ripen at one time to get 10 pounds of tomatoes for canning.  So this year I need to realistically need to limit the number of tomato plants in a raised bed as well as making sure I plant the right kind of tomato plants for our families needs.

Another factor in this and why I'm thinking about these things now, is I start all my tomato and pepper plants indoors.  For most of my other vegetables and even annual flowers I do a method called winter sowing.  But, I post about seed starting and winter sowing in another article.  Right, now I just need to be decided on what kind of tomato seeds I'm going to purchase.  In the past I've purchased seeds from Johnny Seeds and Tomato Fest.   This year I purchased the "The Whole Seed Catalog" from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds for a whopping $7.95.

At this time I will briefly say something about the GMO issue and organic gardening.  Now, I am not completely an organic gardener as my beds are not old enough as of yet.  I do garden using organic gardening practices.  I've read a lot about GMO, probably enough to be dangerous but here is my opinion on the issue.  It seems to me there are two different things going on with GMO development.  Some GMO development seems to be creating plants that produce sweeter, bigger, natural disease resistant strains.  I'm a little more tolerant of that kind of manipulation.  On the other hand there the manipulation of plant DNA to make it more resistant to pesticides, in order to spray products like Round-up, I have a serious concerns with .  Because the companies producing the GMO seeds are not telling us what is and isn't GMO and what they have and haven't done to the seeds/plants.  I don't use GMO seeds, nor do I support GMO seeds companies.  Having said all of that, because our government refuses to implement a labeling program I maybe eating and serving GMO products to my family.  Which bothers me but also encourages me to grow more of my families own food.  Until there is labeling, explanation of what has been done to the plants I will not use GMO seeds.  The excuse that it is a too complicated issue for the general public to understand is kind of insulting as well.

So given what I think about GMO products that leaves me to purchase my seeds from Tomatofest, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company and Johnny Seed Select in that order.  Here are the seeds packet's I'll be ordering
1.  Sudduth Strain Brandywine from Tomatofest - it's a indeterminate tomato, 85 days which is a bit long for Minnesota but well worth the wait as this is the best tasting tomato every in my opinion.
2. Marglobe Supreme from Baker's Creek - its a determinate tomato, 73-77 days.  This is a new tomato for me but has received excellent reviews.
3.  Pantano Romanesco Tomato from Baker's Creek - (but also at Tomatofest) it's a indeterminate tomato, 70 days.  Again this will be a new tomato for me and from the reviews and descriptions should be an excellent canning and slicing tomato.
4.  Anna Russian Tomato from Tomatofest - This is a indeterminate oxheart, 70 days.  I grew this one last year and was very impressed with it.
5.  Italian Tree Tomato from Tomatofest - this is a indeterminate taking 85 days.  I grew this last year as well, it has great taste and canned up well.  Again the only problem I have with it is the 85 days, but worth the wait.
6. New Girl from Johnny seeds - this is a indeterminate taking 62 days.  I've grow this tomato for last few years, it replace the Early Girl tomato plant I grew up with.  When this tomato ripens you know summer is here.
7.  Fargo Tomato Seeds - this is a Semi-Determinate taking 70 days.  It will be the first yellow pear type tomato I've grown.
8.  Valley Girl from Johnny Seeds - this is a determinate taking 65 days.  This too will be a new variety.  Sounds to be very similar to the Early Girl but handles the temperature swings we get here in the north better.  I'll be interested to compare the production of the two plants.
9.  Super Sweet 100 by Johnny Seeds - it's an indeterminate taking 60 days.  The great thing about this plant you really don't need another cherry tomato plant in the garden if you have this baby.  I've grown this tomato plant before and don't remember why I stopped but I'm going back to it.
10.  Chocolate Cherry Tomato from Baker's Creek - this is a indeterminate taking 70 days.  This is the only purple tomato I'm growing.  It's new for me but I'm looking forward to this tasting it.  It does say chocolate in the title so its gotta taste good, right.

These are the ten different varieties I'm going to grow.  Now the question is how many plants am I going to plant.  Well, I'm only going to do one plant of the three different types of cherry tomato plants.  I'd like to do at least three plants of the remaining seven plants.  For a total of twenty four tomato plants.  Which is less than last year.  But remember I wasn't going to plant them so close this year, hmm. Well the good news is Jim as said he would build me an additional two bed each being 3' X 13' X 24".  Which I'm thinking I can get twelve plants into, I'm half way there.  I do straw bale gardening I will have 12-14 bales.  Each bale usually can handle two tomato plants.  Now I didn't do my tomatoes in the bales last year because of sun issues, but I think this year I've figure a way around that.  So realistically I'll do six tomato plants in the bales, that leaves with just six more to find places for.  Three in containers, three in the flowers.  Ta Da looks like I'll have room for them all!  

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Review of "The New Midwest Table" Cookbook by Amy Thielen

Bookmarked Recipes

As I said previously, I got a signed copy of the The New Midwestern Table Cookbook by Amy Thielen for Christmas from Auntie Shannon.  This is a cookbook with not only recipes in it, but stories and information that make it more than just a book full of recipes.

As you can see I've bookmarked the recipes I want to make.  Some as you can see are marked "This summer"  like the Northern Pike Cakes and Kalamojakka, simply because that when I can get fresh fish.  I also bookmark Wild Boar Sloppy Joes, not because I have any nor will I go out and buy any Wild Boar but the recipe says you can also use a ground venison beef mixture.  Which I do have in the freezer.  Little Grandma and I are also going to try our hand at making some Sauerkraut. I'm probably not going to wait for the Sauerkraut to get done before I make the Smoky Sauerkraut Soup.  But it should provide a nice contrast between store bought Sauerkraut flavor and the stuff we'll make.  Now the Cookbook is $35, which for me is on the high side of what I'll pay for a cookbook, so it's a good thing I got it as a present.  Having said that I would have really missed out on some great recipes, ideas, stories and knowledge because of my cheapness.

So reading a cookbook an actually making some of the recipes are completely different, so how have I found the recipes?  Well last night, I made the Cracker Crust Pizza, the Homemade Italian Sausage as well as the Tarte Flambee.  Now my boys love pizza and as Amy Thielen points out in the cookbook, in Minnesota we love thin crust pizza.  Now for just the three of us I made crust recipe twice.  There was pizza left over for breakfast for Cullen and lunch for Jim, but if the other two boys had been home I'd have had to probably quadruple the recipe and not had any left overs.

Cracker Crust Pizza 
(Adapted from The New Midwestern Table by Amy Thielen
First off pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees.  Yep, 500 degrees!  Which Amy points out is considerable lower than the 800-900 degrees that the New York style pizza requires.  Put your Pizza Stone in the oven at this time as well.

Pizza Dough
3/4 cup cool water
14 cup canola oil
1 tsp fie sea salt
2 cup + 2TBLS all-purpose flour, plus more as needed

Basically, I mixed the liquids and salt in the a bowl and added 1 cup of flour at a time.  Mixing well until all the flour is incorporated into the dough.  It was pretty easy peasie.  I split it into two (Amy recommends three), roll it into a ball an flatten it into a disk shape.  Let rest for 30 minutes.  You can let it rest for as much as 3 hours if something comes up.

Now she has a red pizza sauce recipe that sounds great, but calls for San Marzano tomatoes.  These are some truly great canned tomatoes and here in the Minneapolis area you can get them at Costco.  I didn't have any and wasn't up to running into Costco for just Tomatoes.  So instead of opting for some other type of tomato, I decided to just use the jar stuff from my grocery store - Classico.  I'll get the San Marzano tomatoes the next time I go to Costco and compare the two.

Homemade Italian Sausage 
1 pound of ground pork
1 1/2 tsp of fennel seeds (grind in you spice coffee grinder)
1 TBLS minced fresh Sage
2 tsp of sweet paprika
1 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper (Amy uses 1/8 tsp, but my family like spicy sausage)

Mix together with your recently washed hands.

Assembling your Pizza After you left your dough to rest bring out your parchment paper and a rolling pin. Put the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll it until it's between 12 - 14 inches in diameter.  I like this method with the parchment paper much better than flouring up my counter top/cutting board/kitchen and will try using in some of my other recipes.  Pinch the sides to make the crust much the same as you do making a pie crust.  Brush lightly with olive oil.

Cracker Crust Pizza with Homemade Italian Sausage

Spoon on sauce, spread with the back of you spoon.  Add sausage, fresh basil (if you have it), some slivers of yellow onion, sliced fresh mushrooms and mozzarella cheese.  Now Amy talks about using a pizza peel to transfer the pizza to your stone.  I just picked up the parchment paper and put in on my pizza stone.  I don't have room in my kitchen for a pizza peel and while the parchment paper gets a little brown this method works great.

I baked it for 10 minutes.  Amy says to bake it for 15-18 minutes and that made it too crispy for our taste.

Tarte Flambee

1/4 cup of Extra-virgin olive oil, for brushing and for a garnish
2 cups of whole-milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Right from the oven Tarte Flambee with parchment paper

fine sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
2-3 slices of bacon sliced up into match sticks
1/2 Red onion, sliced up into slivers

Combine ricotta cheese, heavy cream and 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese with a 1/2 tsp of the salt and pepper each.  (I had left over sauce and just put it in a container to be used later in the week for more pizza).  Pretty much assemble as above using the remaining ingredients.  I did add fresh spinach leaves as I like the favor profile with this type of pizza.  The only thing different from the above pizza is to be sure to finish it off with a drizzle of olive oil and black pepper.  I again only cooked this for 10 minutes instead of the 15-18 as instructed.  I also sliced my bacon pretty thin as I wanted to be sure it cooked.

Now I didn't copy these recipes exact, as I'm not sure about the copyright laws.  But there enough information here for you to replicate these recipes even so.  On the same hand I cannot say this enough, this cookbook is well worth it's $35 price tag.

Christmas is for Cookbooks

The New Midwestern Table by Amy Thielen

I'm a pretty simple person to buy Christmas gifts for, get me either a cookbook, kitchen gadget, garden gadget or garden supplies and you have a winner.  This year for Christmas Shannon got me "The New Midwestern Table" by Amy Thielen.  Now I haven't tried any of the recipes as of yet, but I've enjoyed reading it already.  Amy has great little stories in between recipes.  She talks about Midwest Crawfish (which all my southern friends call Crayfish), Natural Wild Rice, Birch Syrup and Booya.  Which tell us all from Minnesota that Amy truly is a Minnesota girl.  So far I've had the book almost a day and already have book marked the recipes I want to try.  Rhubarb Tarragon Sangria, Smoky Sauerkraut Soup, Wild Rice with Smoked Chicken Soup, Black Maple-Glazed Pork Belly and I haven't even got though most of the book!  If you got this cookbook, let me know what recipes you have tried and what recipes you want to try! Me, I'm thinking the first one will be Pasties for the boys going up north Snowmobiling.

Some of the Women

Grandma at Grand kids soccer game

Little Grandma 
Lucky for me mom does go on the internet that much.  Ok never, otherwise I may not live to my 54 birthday by posting this picture of her.  Little Grandma was 5'1" I think she's now 4'10" but is in her late 70's.  She and my dad winter in a city townhouse but summer up in Northern Minnesota on 10 acres of land.  Last year she had a hip replacement that kept them from going up north much.  This summer we plan on putting in 30-32 high raised beds for her, so she can continue to garden.  While growing up would tell me she wasn't a very good cook.  Well I think anyone would tell you she not a very good cook she an amazing cook.  But truthfully, my mom is a self taught cook.  She married into a family of amazing cooks with very little experience in the kitchen.  But being the kind of women she is, she quickly started picking up cook books and recipes and developed quite the reputation for herself.

Auntie Shannon and Rebel

Auntie Shannon  - This is my husband sister.  She soon to be in her sixties, she run's marathons, she has an amazing garden an great cook and probably in better shape than my kids.  I'd say she was in better shape than me, but that would be to obvious.  Her garden in Edina has clay soil so she raises her Tomotes in containers, she grows chard, kohlrabi, peas, beans, beets, potatoes, cucumbers and peppers.  She use to have a farm in southern Minnesota while working full time in St. Paul.  She and Greg have a Lake Cabin up north, as well as a 1937 Red Chevy Truck they hope to have fun with going to Car Shows.

Gardens, Cookbooks, Women and Wine

Cookbooks and Herbs in the Kitchen

“Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.” 
― Horace

The scene is a Holiday Party; this isn’t a trendy New York get together.  This is a families and friends get together in Minnesota.  Women with glasses of wine near the kitchen buzzing around preparing, uncovering dishes to be shared.  The men near a large screen TV close to the appetizers drinking a beer from the can or bottle.  The men, who knows what they are talking about, I think sports.  But in the kitchen the women are talking about recipes, kids and men, in that order.  Occasionally, a man will walk into the kitchen to say, “Wow, honey the hot meatballs are great, you should get the recipe.” And then he walks out, all the women’s heads are down, the wife in question makes a loud sign and then says, “Shannon, is that your mother recipe?”  Shannon replies, “Yes it is, you got it, he’s just forgotten since we only make it once a year.”  And then the women all laugh, rolling their eyes at the silliness of the situation.  Then someone tastes the squash, “Oh my goodness, Dottie are these good!”  Which Dottie responds “Oh it’s so easy; I got the recipe out of the newspaper.  I’ll send you the recipe.”  This is a Midwest Holiday Party and Kitchen. 

The scene is a BBQ Party; this isn’t a trendy California get together.  This is a families and friends get together in Minnesota.  Women with glasses of wine in or near the kitchen buzzing around preparing, uncovering dishes to be shared.  The men near a grill close to the appetizers are drinking a beer from the can or bottle talking about sports or comparing grilling techniques.  I only know this because it outside you can actually hear what the men are talking about.  As families pick up their plates of food, women's conversation change from kids and work to recipes and kids.  The night will end with the exchange of recipes.

As our kids go off to college, a lot of the families start gardens.  Some of the men and women work together in the garden, some of separately.  However, most will tell you they start their gardens because they like to eat.  They like the taste of a tomato just off the vine, they like the taste of fresh pick green beans, or they love homemade salsa.  After a crazy day a work they suddenly crave the peace of their garden.  Sitting back in lawn chairs, listening to the bees while I drink a glass of wine and my husband has his beer has been one of the highlights in our house on a summer eve.  

So this year I’m going to explore gardens, recipe sharing, cookbooks and a bit of wine.  Add to that I want my husband and me to lose some weight.  I want to eat more locally.  I want to become more educated on organic foods and what GMO is.  I want to get more in touch with my roots.  This will be a journey that goes between the kitchen and the garden, a journey between family and friends, a journey between of the past and the changing world of today.  Which is a lot to explore, but should be interesting and entertaining!