Storing Onions

This spring I planted about four dozen Big Daddy onions that I purchased from Burpee.  They require a lot of water, but were otherwise super easy to grow, and except for one or two, they all survived.

Onions are easy to harvest - you just pluck them out of the ground, then let them dry in the sun for a week.  You then cut the stem to about 1" and store them in some sort of netting.

I decided to make onion bags out of netting that I have lying around (because I am also a costumer).   The netting is folded in half on the bolt.

I then cut out several strips of this, in slightly different sizes - 4", 5", and 6" wide.

I then sewed it all the way to the fold on both sides.

After that, I took it outside to the onions.  After putting an onion in the bag (depending on size - the larger onions went in the 6" wide netting bags and the smaller ones in the 4", etc.), I then tied a bow with twine in the netting before adding the next onion.  (I wore my Ravenclaw apron to keep my clothes tidy.)  To use an onion, you untie the twine and let the onion drop out of the bag, then cut the mesh about an inch below the next twine.

These are all now hanging in my house.  I tied these up two weeks ago, and so far, they're doing great!

A-Frame for Growing Cucumbers

Last year I made an A-frame for my cucumbers and zucchini, but for some reason, neither the cucumbers nor the zucchini survived.  This year, in addition to heavily composting the garden, we had a ton of rain, and I think it really helped.  I limited the A-frame to cucumbers, and helped them grow up the frame by gently clothes-pinning the leaves and vines to the frame.  This encouraged the cucumber plants to stretch out their runner vines and take hold of the frame.

As you can see, it was a rousing success!  I've even harvested several cucumbers from the vines already.  Our entire garden kind of went out of control due to the rain, but few veggies have been ready to harvest, probably because of the low temperatures we've had all summer (last week we woke up to 50-degree temps!!!)

Lemon Curd

I made lemon curd a few months ago, and it was such a success that I decided to make two more batches!  I got this recipe out of the Get Started Preserving book.  It's a fantastic resource, and like my other canning books, I highly recommend it.

Lemon curd is made with lemons, butter, sugar, and eggs.  First you grate the lemon peel and then slice and juice the lemon.

All of the ingredients (minus the eggs) get heated up until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted.

That gets added to a double boiler, and then the eggs (which have been scrambled) get strained into it to prevent curdling.

After a while, it all thickens, gets poured into jars, and processed for five minutes.  Ta da!

We've been eating it on these Italian lemon waffle cookies.  It's so good!

Pickled Carrots and Onions

A friend has been asking if I can make the pickled carrots that they serve in Mexican restaurants, so this weekend I gave it a shot.  I used this recipe from Food.com.  I haven't had these carrots myself, so I'll have to wait to see what my friend thinks!

Since I was pickling, I decided to also try making sweet pickled onions like some I had last summer.  I used this recipe from Heather Christo, and they turned out great!  I was very tempted to eat the entire jar when I opened them this afternoon ...

Please note - these have been jarred, but not processed.

Cold Frame - Spring 2014

I know a lot of people have been wondering how everything in the cold frame survived this brutal winter.  We had temperatures as low as -20 F, and I was a bit worried about what was in the cold frame.  I was afraid to even open it to see, but on a warm (read: 2 degrees) day, I checked it out, and everything looked great!  We even finished up the lettuce on one of the single-digit days.

You're probably thinking to yourself, "what on earth are those newspapers?"  Well, I was trying to preserve my cabbage.  FYI - it didn't work.  Once the weather warmed up (read: 10 degrees), I chucked them in the compost.

Here's the coldframe today! 

I have garlic coming up that I planted back in November and spinach, lettuce, and radicchio that was planted in early March.  It was supposed to go in in February, but it was just too darn cold to be out there!  The rosemary lasted really well over the winter; this is the first time it's lived more than one season!  I have to transplant it back into the garden proper.

However, some little animal of some sort has gotten in there, as I found a hole as well as droppings.  Except ... I have looked all over the Internet, and I can't identify who the droppings belong to.  Nothing was eaten, though, and I removed the scat so that it wouldn't contaminate the garden.  But ... I need to figure out what was in there!