Artichokes grow best in areas of long mild winters and cool summers. Artichokes do not grow well where the summers are very hot, and where winters are cold and the ground freezes, artichokes must be replanted each year. Perennial artichokes should be cut back to about 12 inches in winter and the roots and crown
Thin sliced baby artichoke hearts tossed with thin sliced mint leaves, a bit of chopped garlic, fresh lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese makes a tasty side salad. Baby artichokes are plentiful in spring. Artichokes are actually flower buds. You want to pick them while they are still tightly
Late summer is the time to find fresh arugula at the farm market. You might find it under a few of its other names: garden rocket, rocket salad, rucchetta, rughetta, rucola (the Italian name), and roquette (the French name). The taste of arugula has been described as tangy, peppery, nutty and mustard sharp. You get
Corn on the cob can be frozen August was the sixth month of the year in the early Roman calendar–called Sextilis, which means sixth–until the Emperor Augustus came along and rearranged the calendar and named the month after himself. In the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, August is the height of summer. Even though
Begin to think about harvest in mid to late summer. Warm-weather crops will be ready then. Keeping the soil evenly moist as crops finish maturing is important; you will stop watering many crops just a week or two before picking to concentrate flavor. Succession planting of summer crops where there is enough season left before
Avocadoes have a rich buttery textured flesh with a slightly nutty flavor and can be eaten as a vegetable or a fruit. There are both winter and summer harvest avocadoes. Winter harvest avocadoes are available at your farm market now. There are dozens and dozens of avocado varieties spread around the world. The variety you
Baby beets are beets harvested just as they have started to round out. Leave these beets until they mature and you can call them table beets. Baby beets—just about the size of a ping-pong ball—have the most delicate taste and texture. Table beets—as big as your fist—still taste good, but don’t let them grow much
Bacterial leaf spot disease produces small, dark irregular spots on tomato and pepper leaves; leaves eventually turn yellow and drop off. This defoliation weakens plants and exposes developing fruits to sunscald. Small, dark, wartlike raised spots with slightly sunken centers may appear on green fruits. Rot organisms are able to enter the fruit at these
Béchamel Sauce is a basic white sauce made by stirring milk into a butter-flour roux. Roux is a flour and butter mixture slowly cooked over a low heat. When a roux is cooked to a beige color it is called white roux. When it is cooked to a golden color it is called blond roux.
Bean classification: Beans can be divided into two main groups: those that can be eaten pod and all and those that are dried. Beans are legumes whose seeds or pods are eaten, but are not classified as peas or lentils (which are also legumes). For the record, legumes are plants with double-seamed pods containing a
