Perennial Harvest

We have had a lot of recent posts about chickens. This post only has pictures of them for scale. =)

Any idea what this is? A dirt golem? Maybe a Illithid? I planted this three years ago and decided it was time to harvest it. I noticed it was sending out runners and it was very close to one of our leach lines. It took the good part of an hour to get the whole thing out of the ground. I have a feeling I will be fighting this plant for years to come where I dug it up. It propagates rather easily from root cuttings.

Give up? It is a three year old horseradish plant (Armoracia rusticana). Horseradish is in the brassica family along with cabbage, broccoli and kohlrabi. This plant has been used by humans since records have been kept and most likely way before that. It has been used as a medicine since the middle ages. Most people know it for its edible qualities, notably that stuff you put in cocktail sauce. That pungent smell you associate with it is actually a chemical reaction that takes place when you break the cell walls. The grating process creates a compound called allyl isothiocyanate or mustard oil. Here is a pretty picture for my nerdy readers.

Do you like sushi? Do you like wasabi with your sushi? Most commercial wasabi is made from the horseradish plant, not the wasabi plant, which is hard to cultivate and expensive. Horseradish is used in the biochemical world quite a lot. An enzyme found in its roots; horseradish peroxidase , is used as a signal amplifier to help increase detectability of specific molecules.

Here it is all cleaned up. This is well over 10 pounds of horseradish. I gave a bunch away, stored a bunch in peat moss in the garage and plan to use all the runners and crowns in the spring to propagate it to sell. I killed two birds with one stone when I dug it up. I want to put in a bunch of small preformed ponds in my garden. The hole this left is the perfect place for one. 

Serviceberry and The Rambunctious Raspberry

Our Serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea) is leafing out and will be flowering soon. The flowers will turn into blueberry like berries in the summer. This is a great shrub and will grow into a tree if given the right conditions. It has been known to reach over 60 ft in height. I plan on putting more Serviceberry in the front yard, which I am slowly turning into a food forest. 

I bought 6 flats of strawberries at the local box store on clearance last year. They are apparently very cold hardy because I did not mulch them at all. They came through the winter looking this good. 

Here are some bunching onions that had no problem overwintering in one of our raised beds. I got some egyptian walking onion seed this year and plan on letting it go in the yard. 

We love leeks. These two did just fine through the winter. A quick tip: when you go to harvest leeks, green onions or celery just cut the plant off at ground level, leaving the roots and the bottom of the plant in the ground. In the case of leeks, you will see the rings turn green and start to push up. This will eventually grow into another leek for you. You can do this many times. I am not sure how many, but I have not had one not grow back yet.

Thyme is a very hardy perennial. I am going to move it out of this raised bed and give it a permanent home nearby. We made the mistake of planting some perennials in our raised beds that would be better suited for annual food crops. 

This is horseradish. I ate some last year and it is very spicy. If you really want to process a lot of horseradish you should use a food processor to shred it and then change the blade out to puree the shredded root. Add salt and vinegar and you will have some wonderful horseradish. This can be stored in a sterile jar in the fridge for up to three months. 

We inherited a thornless red raspberry plant from our good friends Mike and Heather. This thing went crazy in their backyard and they were tired of cutting it back. They had a huge pile of canes they cut down in the corner of their yard. I have planted it in an area that I want it to go crazy. I can't wait to get some raspberries. This picture was taken four days after I planted it. I don't think they were exaggerating about its vigour. 

Homestead Update

Its been a while since I walked the property and took pictures. Here a few images from around the yard and garden. These pics were taken with my cell phone so I apologize for the poor quality. I find if I take pics with the cell phone I do more posts because its easier. It's a trade off.

In the center are our beach roses "rosa rugosa". The purple / pink are the flowers and the red you see are the rose hips. These roses produce one of the largest rose hips of all roses, full of vitamin C.

Here is whats left of our corn. A squirrel came in the day after I planted and dug up close to half of the corn I planted. Squirrel season starts Sept 1st, my corn should be ready towards the middle of Sept..... squirrel corn stew?

I planted over a hundred pole beans yesterday. The left row is a green bean and the right row is scarlet runner bean. We plan on canning a bunch in Sept.

Here is the compost / raised bed / volunteer plant nursery. We got our first ripe tomatoes of the year from volunteers that came up in the compost pile. The raised bed in the foreground has spinach, various herbs and okra planted in it. 

Here are my cascade hops. I was very busy with school when these came up in the early spring. I did not string them up right away so they did not grow to their potential this season. 

Once you plant borage you never need to plant again. Half of this raised bed is full of beautiful blue flowering borage. The flowers are so good. I eat a handful everyday I am in the garden.

This is the horseradish. It is doing very well. I want to split and move half of it to another location in the garden soon. I dug some up earlier this year, the flavor is amazing!

We still have 6-7 heads of cabbage getting bigger and bigger. I just planted a variety that gets up to 10 pound heads.

Here are some peppers. The peppers I start from seed always start out slow but once they hit the heat of summer they go crazy. 

All the stakes along the fence have a tomato I started from seed staked up to it. The tall sunflower looking plants on the right are Jerusalem artichokes. I can't wait to harvest them in the fall.

Here is the asparagus patch. I have been very good and have only eaten one spear over the last two years. This coming spring will be year three and we will be enjoying fresh asparagus for a few weeks.

Here is a shot of the garden. I finally got all the straw down after a storm coming in and blowing my hard work all over the yard.

I have upgraded the arrow target. The round bale was to short and we lost a couple arrows over the top. 

Potato Box

We are growing two different potatoes in stacking cedar boxes.

Here is Patrick placing the 3rd of 4 levels on the potato box. Horseradish, seen in the foreground of this picture, is planted as a companion to the potatoes. This deters beetles and other insects.

The idea is, at the end of the season, you remove the boxes and
potatoes fall out with no digging.

As the potatoes grow up we are covering them with hay. The potatoes grow in the hay while being shaded from the sun by the boxes. We have Russian Comfrey planted in another bed. Once it is established we can harvest the Comfrey and mix it in with the hay. Comfrey breaks down quickly and provides nutrients for the potatoes.