Friday, June 12, 2015

Consequences of Planting Corn

Rose arbor entrance to the garden

The other day when I was planting the corn I noticed some of the rose petals were dropping on the bed. Rose petals have been used for flavoring food for centuries. I've thought about harvesting some in the past, but never had. They are just too beautiful and smell divine in the garden. Cutting off the flowers seemed too hard. But I've been reading books on Middle Eastern cuisine. Rose not an uncommon ingredient and it seems a good cuisine for my food problems. Yes it uses beans, eggplant, and peppers, but unlike something like Mexican cuisine or Indian, I can eat most of the food with just mild changes. And I love the flavors. I never knew that mint and cilantro tasted good together. What would a rose taste like?

I only picked a handful to see how I like them. They certainly made one of my prettiest harvests. I pulled the petals off and laid them on my dehydrator sheets. I didn't use the dehydrator though. I'm just letting them dry naturally. When they are almost done I'll finished them off for an hour to get the last water out. Our climate is pretty humid and herbs (or rose petals I'm assuming) can mold if I don't use my dehydrator. The house smelled so good that first day. Heavenly.

While I was planting the corn I also noticed some white roots under the nearby row cover. I don't go down that path all that much and hadn't checked on them in a while. The row cover is over the broccoli, but I often under plant with turnips. These are Japanese turnips - Oasis - and most will tell you they are best picked at about 1" in diameter. I tend to like them just as much at 2" which is good as some were pretty large.

I'm glad I noticed them before they got way too large and woody. Strangely most of the turnips were ready to pick. Usually I'll find with turnips, especially under planted turnips, that they grow large sporadically. I rarely have a row of them ready at once. Much less a whole bed of them. Most were trimmed of their leaves, but I left a bunch on. Those I sent over to my townhouse mates. I figured they might appreciate the turnip greens and if not they will end up in my compost pile anyway.

These turnips were just lovely too. I often get some root maggot damage despite the row cover. In fact I lost one broccoli plant to them near where they were growing. But I think the flies like the broccoli more than the turnips. For the cabbages it seems to be the other way around.

While I was under there I got all the weeds out, though it wasn't all that bad. And I took off any yellowing leaves from the broccoli. And of course checked out how the heads were forming. They are looking good. It won't be long now. This one seems to be the farthest along. One though - damaged but not killed by the root maggots - hasn't even started to form. It is still trying to gather enough strength for it. It is about half the size of the other plants.

11 comments:

  1. Those turnips look really good. I have always struggled to grow good turnips. They always seem to be the first to succumb to maggot damage. I'm trying Kohlrabi instead this year. I just hope the maggots can't climb out of the soil! One of my favourite meals is lamb with turnips - "Navarin of Lamb".

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agree with Mark's comments. Can't grow turnips here either, but love to eat them both tops and roots. Enjoy for me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I harvested some of my turnips the other day as well - I only grew one short 4' row, so don't have anywhere near as many as you. Just like you said, there was quite the size discrepancy between them, with some being fairly large (those are the ones I harvested) and others were quite a bit smaller. All I can say is YUM - they were amazing! I don't think I've ever had salad type turnips before - oh, what I've been missing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've simply got to sow turnips next spring. Yours are lovely! I'll sow both Oasis and Hakurei in about a month for fall. I can't decide which of the two I like best, so I usually plant them both. It will be interesting to see how you use those rose petals.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We harvested roses a few years ago to make rose petal jam, which tastes great with cheese. I also wanted to make rose water, but it seemed a bit more labor intensive than I wanted. I have a friend who was happy to take a jar of dried rose petals for some Mediterranean cooking! Enjoy your new crop!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Persian cuisine is wonderful. Sometimes they use rose water, sometimes dried rose petals The spice blend advieh or adwiya contains powdered rose petals and is used in rice and chicken dishes. Got mine from Teeny Tiny Spice Co. of Vermont.

    ReplyDelete
  7. One of my fave cookbooks lately is Jerusalem - lots of recipes with rosewater. I've never grown turnips before but yours sure look nice!

    ReplyDelete
  8. You are way ahead of us still, who would have thought it when you were head high in snow!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh, those roses are so beautiful. Can smell them from here! The turnips look nice too. Nancy

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete