(Raphanus sativus) An excellent radish from Germany with a beautiful violet skin and white flesh. Spicy, crisp, and keeps well through the winter. If you are only familiar with spring radishes, this is a new food to try; in the words of Emily Horton, writing for the Washington Post, “radishes are at their most pronounced, and their most versatile, in fall and winter… They differ so greatly in character from…
Carrots tend to struggle in our fairly heavy soil, but Chantenay Red has been reliable, producing in short, stout, delicious roots. NOTE: Carrot seed is an experiment for us. Because carrots cross with wild carrot/ Queen Anne’s lace, almost all seed companies in eastern North America buy their carrot seed from west of the Rockies (where wild carrot doesn’t grow yet, though it’s spreading). We have decided to experiment with…
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(Beta vulgaris) An old classic which our family loves for its reliability and ease of growing; we plant, thin, mulch, and forget them until it is time to bring in the abundant harvest. Apparently this variety was originally released by D. M. Ferry & Co. of Detroit, Michigan (of course) in 1892. By 1895 their catalogue declared: “This variety was introduced by us and is now universally recognized as being…
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(Tragopogon porrifolius) A root vegetable which is fully winter-hardy here, salsify has long, pale roots which, some say, taste like oysters – hence its other common name, “oyster plant”. I have never eaten an oyster, so I cannot judge; but it’s a good addition to the winter menu. Flower shoots, which appear in the second year, can be eaten like asparagus. However, if you let it continue to flowering, you’ll…
(Scorzonera hispanica) Scorzonera, also called black salsify, is a root vegetable which also has edible greens and flowers. It is quite cold-hardy, so some people have proposed intentionally breeding it for early spring greens. All plant parts have a pleasant, mildly nutty flavour. Our seed comes from plants overwintered outdoors to select for winter-hardiness.
(Pastinaca sativa) A large and enthusiastic parsnip, about 3” wide at the top and 10-12” long, which is great as a solo dish or mixed with other root vegetables for a warming supper on a winter’s night. Parsnips become sweeter after frost, and are quite winter-hardy, so you can leave them outside and harvest whenever the ground isn’t frozen if you want to.
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(Cyperus esculentus) Chufa (also called earth almond or tiger nut) is a strange plant which has been grown since prehistoric times in Egypt. A sedge – it looks rather like a clump of grass when growing – it does not flower, but instead produces loads of little edible tubers. The tubers dry after harvest and can be eaten raw, boiled, roasted, or made into various other dishes; when raw, I…
