Surviving The 1st Frost 霜後 (第一波)

Danvers 126 Half Long Carrots --- no damage

Chinese cabbage siu choy (紹菜) --- no damage

Chinese kale (芥蘭) --- no damage

Sugar snap peas --- slightly droopy leaves, minor damage

Fava beans --- slightly droopy leaves, no damage

Napa cabbage seedlings --- pleasantly surprise, no damage.

Here are some of the vegetables endured 18F (-7.78C) freezing temperature last night (will they survive 2 more nights of freezing temps?)  These pictures were taken around 10:30 a.m. this morning at 23F (-5C). None of the vegetables received any protection from floating covers or mulch, I want to test their cold tolerance to see how far I can push them and what to expect next year.

The carrots and brassicas are the strongest of all, sugar snap peas suffer minor damage, I picked the shoots for lunch this afternoon just in case it won't make it through tonight's freeze. The cold tolerance experiment is very encouraging, it indicates the Chinese cabbage and radish plus all other brassicas will be able to withstand cold down to the teens for short periods of time, which means I can overwinter these crops if given adequate protection from cold.

1:40 p.m.  Shortly after posting the above message snow and wind pound at the surviving plants, will my babies live?

Harvest Before The Big One 霜來了

Tonight's temperature is forcasted to drop down to low 20s,
I have to harvest these crops to save them from the
freezing temperature or else risk losing all of them.

Snowball cauliflower, this one is about the size of a small egg.
Will I see it again when we return home next week?

We have had light frosts on and off this month, it was raining this morning and snow in the mountains, tonight and the next 3 nights will be the coldest for October. These are the ones I manage to pick before going out of town, I'm leaving the carrots, green onions, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, gai lan, bok choy, sweet peas, spinach, beets, some napa cabbages, and miscellaneous seedlings unprotected while I'm gone. It would be interesting to see if they can fend for themselves without floating covers.

The beans, tomatoes, eggplants, chili peppers, winter melons, squashes, and herbs are done, no need to worry about them except to clean up the mess when I come home. Would you believe I started some seeds at this time of the year? Yah~~~~~silly me!!!!!

Chinese Napa Cabbage 大白菜

I'll be making kimchi later today.

With outer leaves removed.

Total of 18 leaves at 2.7 lb, they will be used for soup.

Small shallow roots, total weight 7 1/2 lb (3.19 kg)

Could get bigger, but I have to harvest it
before tonight's hard freeze.

18 leaves @ 2.7 lb (1.19 kg)

Cabbage head @ 4.4 lb (2 kg)

Chinese Napa cabbage is so easy to grow, most pests more or less leave it alone. It only took 2 1/2 months from seed to harvest, I will be growing more of it next year.

Korean Radish 韓國蘿蔔

Harvest before the hard freeze.

Quintuplet from F1 hybrid seed.
I suspect there were small pieces of gravels or wood chips
in the raised bed to cause the split, I could be wrong.

10 radishes (without leaves) weighting in at 2.51 kg (5.5 lb)
I forgot to adjust WB on the camera for indoor photos that's
why the radishes look yellow compare to the pictures above.

I have to pull these small radishes today because I don't know whether they can stay in ground for the coming freezing temperature and snow or not.

For Tonight's Dinner 今晚吃的

Radish 2.65 lb (without leaves)
Broccoli 15.73 oz (without stems)


Would you believe tomato hornworm ate these hot peppers?

I'll be making daikon soup and stir fry broccoli with beef in oyster sauce tonight.

The winter radishes are so sweet this time of the year, I have been harvesting them to make soups, stews, and kimchi, they are also good in braising with pork or beef.

I cut the broccoli head so that side shoots will develop, I've read somewhere that once the main head is cut, the plant will produce shoots for another 6 weeks of harvest, since brassicas can tolerate frost I am not at all worry about the drop in temperature.

Broccoli Looking Good 嘿嘿嘿

Broccoli takes long time to mature, it is best grown in the fall

so it doesn't get heat stress and bolt into flowers.

 Rosa Bianca -- Italian eggplant

This is the last crop, their growth has slowed down

due to cooler temperature and shorter daylight.

Sugar snap peas are growing well, they like the fall weather.

This may be the last white bitter melon for the season,

the IWK runner beans (in the background)

are encroaching into the bitter melon territory.

This is my first attempt to grow peas in the Fall, the seeds were sown about 1 month ago, it is rather late in the season for our area, but I took a chance to see how far I can push the growing season, now it looks like I will have at least one harvest of pea shoots prior to frost, it would be super nice if there are some pea pods for our Thanksgiving dinner.

Spaetzle (German Style Dumpling)

Spaetzle Maker (or use a colander)

Drop batter into the slider cup, and slide it back and forth
forcing the batter to drop into the boiling water below.

Spaetzle in hot boiling water.

Toss spaetzle with butter or olive oil and garnish with parsley.

Mix the following ingredients together to form a smooth thick batter, let the batter rest 15 minutes before cooking.

1     cup     flour

2     large   eggs

1/4  cup     water/milk

1/2  tsp      salt

1/8  tsp      white pepper

1.  Boil a pot of water and set the spaetzle maker on top of the pot.

2.  Pour batter into the cup and move the slider cup back and forth, the batter will drop through the holes and form small dumplings.

3.  Bring the pot to boil and cook the dumplings for about 1 minute, (yes, they cook fast.)

4.  Drain dumplings onto a plate/bowl and toss it with some butter/olive oil, garnish with chopped parsley; best serve with meat in some kind of sauce.

I like to serve spaetzle with Hungarian Chicken Paprikas (recipe later).

Backyard Hot Air Balloons 2009

Click on anyone of the photos for larger view.

Every year on the first 2 weekends of October Albuquerque NM hosts the International Hot Air Balloon Festival, it is the biggest event of the year, balloonists come from all over the world to compete in different category of balloon races.

We see many hot air balloons pass by our house in early mornings (usually between 6:30 - 7:30 a.m.) during summer and fall when air current is calm, they fly so low one can see and hear the balloonists talking to each other. 

The most awesome sight is mass ascension when hundreds of hot air balloons take off at the same time, the twilight glow and special shape balloons are beautiful to see.  The above link provides additional information about the festival if anyone is interested.

Xinjiang Big Dish Chicken 新疆大盤雞

Click on photo to enlarge picture.

There are many variations to this dish, but it always has potatoes, fresh peppers (sweet or hot), carrots, and onions, for red color some use tomatoes, some use red peppers; for additional colors some people use fresh or dried mushrooms, squashes etc.  Here, I use whatever I found in our garden except the potatoes.

I use hot chili peppers in my dish, but you can ignore it and use sweet bell peppers instead.  If you're going to skip using some of the dried spices make sure you don't skip the peppercorns and cummin seeds, after all this is a fusion dish with unique flavor marrying Szechuan's peppercorns to Xinjiang's cummin seeds.

Click here for the origin of Xinjiang Big Dish Chicken (in Chinese).

Click here for video demonstration.

Fresh ingredients:

1     3 lb      chicken

2                 tomatoes
1                 summer squash

1                 potato

1                 carrot

1                 onion

4     sweet chili peppers

2     hot      chili peppers (opt)

4     slices  ginger

2     stalks  green onions

Dried spices:

1     stick    cinnamon

1                bay leaf

1     tsp      cumin seeds

1     tsp      cumin powder

1     tsp      Szechuan peppercorns

2     whole  dried chili peppers

Other ingredients:

Oil, salt, pepper, soy sauce, sugar, cooking wine/1 can beer.

Cooked homemade noodles

  

Putting the dish together:

1.  Make infused oil --- heat 1/4 cup oil to hot, turn off heat, drop in dried chili peppers, Szechuan peppercorns, and cumin seeds; let the spices steep in hot oil while preparing meat and vegetables.

2.  Cut vegetables and chicken and set aside.

3.  Pour some infused oil into a wok/frying pan ---- stir fry ginger, onion, fresh hot chili peppers, bay leaf, and cinnamon stick until fragrant;  add chicken pieces and brown lightly; sprinkle chicken with soy sauce and wine (or beer) mix thoroughly; pour in some water to barely cover the chicken, bring to boil.

4.  Add potatoes and tomatoes, season with salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of sugar; bring the mixture to boil again and cover with a lid; cook until the potatoes are done, approximately 7-10 minutes.

5.  Add the rest of the vegetables (green onions, squash, sweet peppers, etc), and cook for couple minutes.

6.  Remove from heat, serve on top of homemade noodles with sauce; garnish with cilantro or green onions.

Rambling

The Nobel Peace Prize has become the Political Beast Prize.

Whatever happened to those who contributed their entire life to peace?

Kimchi for Tonight's Dinner 做韓國泡菜囉

I made this kimchi an hour after the radish was harvested.

This radish is sweet, juicy, and crunchy, the freshest and the best radish kimchi I've ever had. It's worth the work and waiting. I'm freezing the leaves to make "Five Elements Soup" later, there's no organic radish leaves for sale anywhere that I'm aware of.

Cold Damaged Squash 可憐的瓜瓜

We had a cold snap on October 2nd, night temp was down to 34F,
despite the plants were covered with floating row covers,
Sunburst squash received the most damage.
They were pretty sad looking the morning after,
this picture was taken this morning (4 days later),
they look much better now.

I pollinated this baby after the damaged,
looks like it worked out fine, both flowers were good to go.

The Sunburst seeds were sown on August 14th, and the first squash harvested on October 2nd just before the chill. It was a good size fruit and weighted in at 5 oz.

Lessons learned --- planting summer squash for fall harvest should be no later than end of July; don't count on the "average frost date", allow an extra 2-3 weeks of growing time as compare to spring planting.

Pickled Beans and 四川泡菜

Chinese Szechuan Pickle 四川泡菜
Homegrown produce --- 4 kinds of snap beans,
green meat daikon, Easter Egg radishes,
Fresno red chili peppers, and garlic.

Pickling purple beans, curious to see how
purple color reacts in vinegar solution.

The beans lost their purple color and turned green
when hot vinegar solution is poured into the jar.

Today is food preserving day --- can, freeze, dry, pickle, and cook. Here are the approximate measurements for the brine:

A) Vinegar solution for the beans --- 3 cups white vinegar, 2 1/2 cups water, heaping 1/4 cup pickling salt/sea salt.

B) Brine for the Szechuan pickles --- 2 qts water, 1/2 cup pickling salt/sea salt, bring to boil until salt is dissolved, set the brine aside and let it cool to room temperature.
Seasonings: 4 slices of fresh ginger root, 6 cloves of fresh garlic, fresh or dried chili peppers (whole), Szechuan peppercorns, and 2-3 tbsp "high octane" liquor. You may also add bay leaves and other herbs, I've seen people use store bought American "pickling spices" with good results.
Vegetables: carrots, radish, diakon, peppers, beans, squashes, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. Do not use "watery" vegetables such as cucumber and winter melon, they exude too much liquid and weaken the brine.

Korean White Radish F1 韓國蘿蔔(改良種)

A bad bad critter took the first bite on my first winter radish.

Of all the white radishes sold in grocery stores, I always buy the short fat Korean radish. I like its texture and taste for kimchi, soup, braise, pickle, and Chinese radish pudding cake etc. When I saw the seeds for this radish couple months ago I picked it up right-a-way, I really really want to grow this vegetable and eat it fresh from the garden.

Most experience gardeners would tell you not to transplant root vegetables for fear of damaging the roots, but the risk taking genes in me wanted to do otherwise, figuring I have nothing to lose (except few seeds) why not just sow the seeds in temporary housing first, then prep the soil and make room for the crop later. Ahah, I'm doing exactly the opposite of what I was supposed to do.
Luck was on my side, I have been lucky in transplanting many different kinds of roots such as radishes, daikons, beets, kohlrabi, and turnips without any complication. So~~~~feel free to break any gardening "rules", it's what work for you that counts.

Forming Heads? 開始包心了

Stonehead cabbage leaves are turning inward to form a head.

Chinese Napa cabbage top is beginning
to curl inward forming a barrel shape head.

The cabbages are doing very well, I am pleased at the way they grow. I think they are best grown in the Fall with shorter daylight and cooler temperature. Spring is too short in our neck of the woods, there is not enough time for the long term residents to develop their potentials before heat waves descend on them.

The broccoli are growing super fast and huge with lots of leaves, but no flower head yet. The cauliflower is poking along slowly, and it is the slowest of the bunch. I heard cauliflower is very particular about the temperature it grows in, it prefers "warmish cool", (what's that supposed to be?) I don't get it! Cauliflower bolts when it is hot, it will not produce a flower head if it is cold, I suppose one can always pray for "warmish cool" days for the caulies.