Garden Wisdom Blog — Other

The blackened char of tomatillos and peppers adds so much depth of flavour to this classical Mexican salsa. Foodie puritans might achieve this over direct flame in the traditional manner, but the broiler works just as well. Enjoy this salsa with corn chips, or add it to nearly any Mexican dish. It’s perfect for parties at the height of summer, but it’s pretty amazing in the middle of winter, too. Classic Salsa Verde is made with minimal ingredients, and takes less than half an hour to prepare. It has a luxurious sweetness and mouth feel. This recipe produces about 2...

Roasting garlic transforms it from spicy, sharp, and pungent to sweet and smokey. The garlic loses its hard texture and becomes creamy and smooth. There are lots of ways to achieve this, but our preferred method is this simple roasted garlic recipe. Preheat the oven to bake at 400°F (205°C). Using a sharp knife, carefully cut through the top 5mm (1/4″) of the upper side of a whole garlic bulb. This is the flat side, opposite the root end. This cut should expose all of the largest cloves in the bulb. Be sure to keep the parts trimmed off for...

Garlic is an incredibly economical crop. Planted in the fall, it grows very slowly over winter, and is ready to harvest in late spring to early summer the following year. If it is dried and cured properly, it will stay ready to use for months — even into the following spring. So from a relatively small space, a lot can be harvested, and enjoyed over a very long period. The secret lies in how to cure garlic correctly for long term storage. Be as gentle as possible when first digging up your garlic crop. Bruises and cuts to the bulb...

Soy is a fairly easy plant to grow. A single packet of seeds can produce enough soy beans at the end of the season to process into several liters of pure home made soy milk. For a short cut, you could use certified organic soy beans for sprouting, and follow the recipe below, but we encourage you to take this homesteading challenge, and produce the beans yourself. Turn one packet of seeds into a huge bowl full of beans. Using certified organic seeds, or growing your own organic soya beans is a good way to ensure that no GMO ingredients...

Does removing the scape from hard-necked garlic really improve the size of the bulb and cloves? That’s the commonly understood wisdom among garlic growers. Whether it is scientifically true or not, garlic scapes are edible and packed with garlic flavour. The scape is the flower stalk that emerges in late spring or early summer, including the unopened flower itself. On hard necked garlic varieties, the scape tends to form a loop before the flower opens — you will know this when you see it! While the scapes can be sautéed and eaten on their own, we like to make this...