It’s canning time! To help inspire you to put away a few things for the winter, Anne Bryant created an adorable preserving-themed desktop calendar.

To put the August calendar on your computer’s desktop, all you need to do is choose the size that best fits your monitor and then click on the link below—the file will automatically download to your computer and then you can set it up as your background image.

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I’ve got the calendar all set up on my computer to help remind me to make pickles this summer! When I was a kid there was usually a great big jar of homemade pickles in the fridge. My mom grew lots of cucumbers in our garden and she pickled them with a recipe that she cut out of the newspaper in the early 1980s. I asked her to send the recipe to me and she copied it out verbatim. The recipe came from a home economics column. We’re not quite sure who the cooking advice columnist was, other than the fact that her name was Polly, but the recipe is a family favorite!

My mom has a crock, but she says you can pack the pickles in jars and pour the brine over them if you don’t have one. She also sometimes added in a hot chile or two.

Polly’s Refrigerator Pickles

Dear Polly:

Do you have a good recipe for pickles—the kind that taste like deli dills? ~ Andy

Dear Andy:

My favorite pickle recipe does indeed taste like the crisp half-sour deli pickles that are so good with a hamburger or a corned beef sandwich—or just about anything else.   These are refrigerator pickles;  I don’t recommend canning them because the short fermentation period and small amount of vinegar in the brine may not contain enough acid to safely preserve the pickles for long storage at room temperature.  Rather, they may be stored in their brine in the refrigerator for several weeks.  The recipe is from that excellent guide to garden-fresh produce, The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash (Knopf).

Thoroughly clean and halve (or cut into spears) about 2 ½ pound of pickling cucumbers.  Peel and flatten one large clove of garlic (or more if you really like garlic).  Wash six to eight sprigs of fresh dill if you have it.  (If not substitute one-teaspoon dill seeds.)

Place the cucumbers, garlic, dill or dill seeds and 1 teaspoon whole pickling spices in a crock, glass jar, or bowl large enough to allow at least 2 inches of space between the pickles and the top of the container.  Bring ¼ cup vinegar, and 2 ½ quarts of water to a boil.  Boil two minutes.  Pour the brine over the cucumbers and weigh down with a plate and some heavy cups or cans on top.  The brine should be at least one inch above the cucumbers.  Keep the crock at room temperature overnight, then refrigerate either in the crock or in clean jars (fill the jars with the brine and cover until ready to eat).

This formula is so fast and easy to use that you can make several batches during the season.  And refrigerated, the pickles will keep several weeks without becoming very much stronger or more sour.  One bite of the crunchy, tasty pickles will make you a regular pickle maven! ~ Polly

Some very hungry imported currant worms completely defoliated the gooseberry shrubs at the Corson Building in Seattle, leaving behind only the magenta-colored berries, which hung from the bare branches like Christmas ornaments. Currant worms look like the Very Hungry Caterpillar of Eric Carlisle fame. Small, green and wiggly,  they are not actually caterpillars, but the larvae of a sawfly.

The flies tend to lay their eggs on shaded leaves at the center of the plants, and the larvae usually emerge just as the gooseberries and currants are beginning to size up. If left to their own devices the currant worms will eat every bit of foliage on the plant, with only the thorny branches remaining. The best way to control currant worms organically is to keep an eye on your plants and pick off any worms that you see. Drop them in a jar of water spiked with a few drops of biodegradable dish soap. When they are good and dead, you can toss them on your compost pile.

But enough about the worms. Let’s talk about these berries! Aren’t they gorgeous? Their tart reddish pink skins encase a sweet, juicy interior. I want to plant dozens of these shrubs in my yard. They really are pretty plants and I love the idea of growing fruit that is entirely unusual. The berries are delicious enough to eat right off the shrub, but I think this gooseberry pie sounds pretty tasty, too!

One of the best ways to make the most of a small garden space is to grow vegetables with multiple edible parts. This allows you to harvest the plant at different stages and enjoy roots, greens, flower buds, blossoms, and even seed pods, depending on the crop. One of my very favorite multi-use edibles is ‘Golden Ball’ turnip. I know that the words “favorite” and “turnip” are not typically used in conjunction, but hear me out. I think the reason why people don’t like turnips is because they are often harvested past their prime and then stored for weeks or longer. The roots retain their looks in storage, but they develop a much stronger flavor.

Small turnips, harvested at the size of a fat radish, are very sweet. You can seriously pull them out of the garden, rinse them off with the hose, and pop them right into your mouth. They are even better boiled and mashed with butter and caramelized onions. Even if you never warm up to the roots, the greens are phenomenal.

The greens have a very mild mustard flavor and a tender texture when harvested very small (just 2 to 3 inches long) and they can be added to salads at the stage. As the greens mature, they develop a stronger flavor and also a velcro-like texture (not unlike radish greens). At this point, the greens really aren’t very tasty raw, but they completely transform when cooked. The little prickles on the leaves disappear and heat tempers the mustard flavor. I like to stir-fry or braise the leaves with garlic and then stuff them into tacos or quesadillas. To harvest the greens, just cut off the outer layer of leaves as the plants grow (new leaves will emerge from the center). If you don’t want to harvest the roots, you can also grasp all the leaves from a single plant in one hand and cut them down two inches above the root for a cut-and-come again harvest.

‘Golden Ball’ has very pale yellow skin, exceptionally sweet roots, and productive tops. I planted mine in late spring and we are still harvesting the roots and greens. The plants are beginning to show signs of bolting, which is just fine with me. Turnips and broccoli rabe are very closely related botanically speaking, and turnip flower buds taste amazing in stir fry. Once I harvest the buds, I’ll pull up the remaining big roots and feed them to my chickens, who have never met a root vegetable they didn’t like.

Swiss chard is a biennial, which means that it grows roots and leaves in its first year. Following the winter, the plant stretches up towards the sky, its pretty stalks contort and seed heads form. Right now my Swiss chard is bolting (i.e going to seed). The only problem? I planted it this spring. Thankfully, I can blame my problem on the weather.

In general Swiss chard is remarkably bolt resistant in its first year. It produces a generous amount of leaves long after spinach and lettuce give up the ghost. But when Swiss chard is exposed to long periods of temperatures below 50 degrees, or wildly fluctuating temperatures, it gets confused and thinks that it lived through the winter. Transplanted seedlings are more prone to bolting than directly sown plants, and varieties with red or pink stalks are more vulnerable to premature bolting than ones with white stalks.

Swiss chard readily self sows, which means that when its seed drops to the ground it will germinate all on its own when the conditions are right (usually the following spring). And leaves from bolted chard do not develop a harsh or bitter taste like bolted spinach. So, unless you need to pull the bolting plants to make way for another crop, I encourage you to let the Swiss chard set its seed. You’ll get a new crop next year—or maybe even this fall if you are lucky—without any extra work on your part!

Jon and I have been filming the 2nd season of Grow. Cook. Eat., our little garden to table video series on eHow.com. I thought I’d follow up yesterday’s post on harvesting pea shoots, with our video on pea shoot salad with shaved Pecorino Romano cheese. The salad is super simple to make, but so delicious! If you don’t have pea shoots, no worries. The vinaigrette works well with any salad green. I usually make some at the beginning of the week so I have it on hand when I want to make a quick salad for lunch or dinner.

The only major problem with the video is I say that the pea shoots have a “mild pea flavor”, which in retrospect does not sound particularly tasty!

My favorite part of gardening is growing food that is hard—if not impossible—to find at grocery stores. Pea shoots fall firmly into this category (unless you are lucky enough to live by a great Asian market). The shoots, which are the tips of the pea vines, make the most fantastic salad green. They look like a pretty pile of scrollwork on the plate. And they taste divine, too. Kind of like peas, only lighter and sweeter.

In the garden I plant my peas about an inch apart. This super close spacing allows me to pinch out every plant when the shoots are 4 to 6 inches tall and have a delicious salad. I let the remaining shoots grow and pinch them back once when they are about 12 to 18 inches tall. After that I let the vines grow so they can produce pods.

In order to have an ample supply of both pea shoots and pea pods, I have taken a cue from my friend Lorene and started growing peas exclusively for their shoots in a crate on my patio. I pinch back the shoots about once every 7 to 10 days and the peas respond by sending up even more shoots. The shoots from snow, sugar snap, and English peas are all delicious. Just don’t be tempted to sample pea shoots from sweet pea flowers—they are not edible.

So where do you pinch? Grab a shoot by its tip and trace the stem down past the emerging growth and past the next lowest leaf. Stop at the second large leaf down. If you look closely where the stem emerges from the leaf you might see a little chartreuse nub (see the arrow above). That is where you want to pinch.

By removing the growth above that little nub, you signal it to grow into a new shoot. Don’t see a nub? Just pinch as close as you can above the leaf. If the shoot feels a little tough, move up and pinch above the next highest leaf. Shoots that are 2 or 3 inches long are the most tender; 4 to 6 inch ones are also tasty but are best cooked briefly in a stir fry.

I took this picture just a couple of days after pinching the shoots back. As you can see the little nubs are starting to grow!

I’ve found that I can harvest the shoots growing in containers for 2 or even 3 months (depending on the heat). This means I’ve had a continual supply of shoots since early April and they are still going strong. The peas in my garden (‘Arrow’ and ‘Super Sugar Snap’) will be finished producing pods in the next week or so. Before I pull the vines out, I will pinch back the tips for one last harvest of pea shoots.

I also planted some seeds in a little terracotta pot that was hanging around in our garage. I’m using it as centerpiece on our patio table. When we are sitting outside in the evening we often just pinch the shoots back from the centerpiece and snack on them. It’s such a luxury!

Happy 4th of July! Jon and I are taking a little mini vacation on the Oregon Coast. My goal for the trip is to eat as many strawberries as I can in a two day period. Here are a few recipes that caught my eye…

Grilled Strawberry Shortcake Kebabs from Sunset magazine.

Strawberry Summer Cake from Smitten Kitchen

Homemade Strawberry Nutella Pop Tarts (hello!) from The Kitchn

Hope you all have a happy holiday!

July is such a great month in Pacific Northwest gardens because spring crops like peas and lettuce are finishing and tomatoes and summer squash are just starting to come on. Anne Bryant’s desktop calendar for this month celebrates all the beautiful food we get to eat in summer!

To put this month’s calendar on your computer’s desktop, all you need to do is choose the size that best fits your monitor and then click on the link below—the file will automatically download to your computer and then you can set it up as your background image. Here’s to the first tomatoes and the last peas!

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