atomic carrots & super freak pumpkins - the Lonesome Road Kitchen Garden 2012!

Atomic carrots and super freak pumpkins. Sounds like some kind of mutant science fiction vegetables. In reality, heirloom Atomic Red carrots and warty Super Freak pumpkins are part of the 2012 Lonesome Road Studio kitchen garden!

Part of the New Year's Day break was spent poring over pages and pages of all the new gardening catalogs arriving daily in the mail, with their tempting photos of gigantic heads of cabbage, heaping piles of green beans, and bushels and bushels of perfectly ripe tomatoes. Eighty dollars later, we've made some progress in planning the garden. Joining the Atomic Red carrots will be Tendersweet carrots, and the Super Freak pumpkins will be neighbors with Giant Magic Hybrid pumpkins. Fresh garden salads are a favorite on the Lonesome Road, and there will be Romaine lettuce and a lettuce blend, plus two varieties of spinach, and radicchio.
The pepper family is represented by three favorites: Cubanelle (wonderful in summer bread salad), San Martin Anchos, and Del Sol Serranos. Let's hope they grow this year; 2011 was not the best year for peppers around here.
Mr. Lonesome enjoys snow peas, and I like long slender filet-style green beans and yellow wax beans, so there will be a little of all of these in the kitchen garden again this year. I am always intrigued by the beauty of deep purple beans but that fascination fades just like their purple color after cooking. Instead, finger-length Hansel eggplants will provide the purple in this year's garden.
Don't tell anyone... but I'm not a big fan of corn even though I live in the heartland. Mr. Lonesome does though, so we will have a little patch of sweet corn this year, replacing the patch of Japanese hull-less popcorn we grew last year (and are enjoying in abundance!).
Two old favorites are making a return in the garden this year, cucumbers and white kohlrabi. This year's newcomers are Borettana Cipollini onions and Stonehead cabbage. I did not forget how awesome last year's Walla Walla onion harvest was and later this spring I will be returning to the garden center where I bought last year's sets - why mess with a good thing?
The neighbors' Clydesdales assisted with this year's garden, if you know what I mean.
Did I forget anything? Oh yes, tomatoes and herbs. The tomatoes of choice are usually paste varieties like Roma or San Marzano. We haven't decided whether to start them from seed or purchase plants later in the spring. As for herbs, we've ordered a couple varieties of oregano and I'm sure we'll have more than enough volunteer dill and maybe cilantro. Past efforts to grow perennial rosemary and tarragon were not particularly successful, but gardening is much like being a Chicago sports fan, there's always next year!
Check back to see our garden's progress, and tell me a little about your garden!

Order and Profusion: The Kitchen Garden

The New Kitchen Garden by Anna Pavord

A Complete Practical Guide to Designing,

Planting, and Cultivating

a Decorative and Productive Garden

Published by DK Publishing - 1996

It's that time of year. Poring over garden catalogs, you've made your selections, now the actual planning of the garden's layout is the task at hand. This is a book you will refer to again and again in the planning stages of the garden of your dreams. "The New Kitchen Garden" by Anna Pavord truly waters the seeds of the gardener's imagination. The first part of the book is devoted to innovative and beautiful original planting designs of various kitchen garden styles including "Formal Fruit Garden," "Vegetable Patchwork," "Cottage Garden," "Salad and Herb Garden," as well as clever designs that maximize growing spaces for smaller yards and urban balconies. Here you will find inspiring designs that emphasize the unexpected beauty of each plant, like "chiseled artichokes" and "handsome leeks." The combination of vegetables and fruits with flowers both decorative and useful is amazing.

The growing section includes information on vegetables, fruits, nuts, herbs and edible flowers. Each plant is illustrated by a stunning detailed photo and is accompanied by directions for its cultivation, recommendations for best cultivars, and a simple, elegant recipe plus helpful culinary notes. A gardening book and a cookbook all in one - my kind of reading!

A thorough section on planting and cultivation techniques discusses topics like types of soil, creating garden structures, crop rotation, feeding and watering, greenhouses, cold frames, training and pruning trees, harvesting and storing, and of course, pests, weeds and diseases. This section has been very helpful to us in caring for our own gardens; the photos are clear and treatments for the problems are practical and effective.

This book is as inspiring and timeless as it was when published in 1996. "The New Kitchen Garden" is easily found online through Amazon and other booksellers; treat yourself to some new yet classic ideas for your own garden. I wish you order and profusion in the months to come!

new for the kitchen garden

It's that time.... seed catalogs stacked to the ceiling... garden plans graphed neatly... tiny peat pellets sprouting new life, promising a season of bountiful richness.

The Lonesome Road gardens are a bit soggy at the moment, but the choices have been made for this year's kitchen garden. Of course we have more seeds than we could possibly ever need (how did we end up with 7 or 8 different kinds of lettuce?). Yet enthusiasm wins over practicality every year and so we will get to work in the garden once again in a couple of months. Besides, any extra produce is always welcome at local food pantries and as part of Plant A Row For The Hungry.

The newest addition to the Lonesome Road kitchen garden this year will be the herb epazote. I am a Rick Bayless fan; I have been to his fabulous Chicago restaurant Frontera, I have one of his many cookbooks, and I love to watch his cooking show "Mexico One Plate At A Time." One of the ingredients that Bayless uses often in his authentic Mexican cooking is epazote; it's not readily found in my area stores so I ordered seeds to plant my own and will give it a try this year. In my research, I discovered that epazote is often used in bean dishes because it has digestive properties, kind of a natural "Beano."

I am also treating myself to Ichiban eggplant this year. In previous years I've planted several varieties of eggplant; the little white ones that look like actual eggs, the lovely lavender and white ones, and the list goes on. I've never really liked the texture and seediness of the others but have always longed for those elegant long, dark Japanese eggplants that need no peeling. So I found what I was looking for in my trusty seed catalog, and I will hopefully have a bumper crop of Ichiban eggplant for everything from ratatouille to Chinese stir-fries and oh yes... tempura!

Of course the usual suspects will be included this year. Last year was not a good year for tomatoes on the Lonesome Road; we will try again for a good crop of Roma tomatoes for my awesome homemade pizza sauce which is made in large quantities for the freezer (yes, I will post the recipe here!). Other garden favorites to be planted this year are Cubanelle and Poblano peppers, and herbs. This year the herbs will be part of a container gardening system; with my busy schedule of juggling a job and an ever-increasing show schedule, I just don't have the time to pick weeds in an extensive herb garden. Plus, it gives me an excuse to buy some cool pottery *wink*.

Post your garden suggestions here; what's new in your garden this year, and old favorites that you can't live without.