This year's veggie garden: A lot of flops and one huge success

Vegetable gardening is all but finished for the year. The occasional tomato ripens up and we're still eating onions from the garden, but for the most part, it's all over. I'll have to start buying vegetables from the grocery store within a week. That makes me so sad. (You can read about the varieties I planted here.)

Overall it was a lousy year in the vegetable garden. The tomatoes were mostly a disaster. It was so cold so late into summer that they got a really rough start. Last year I froze tons of them. This year I didn't even have enough to give away to neighbors.

The cucumbers were awful. I might have planted them too late, or maybe it was just bad weather, but I grow them almost exclusively for pickling and I didn't enough to even make one batch of pickles. We ate a few in salads and they were delicious, but if I'm going to be pickling, I need enough to make at least a few jars at a time.

 The zucchini were OK. Not great, and I never had to resort to making zucchini bread to use it up, but what we had was delicious.

The green beans were a disaster. I think green beans are probably my favorite vegetable. I didn't plant nearly enough of them and they just didn't keep producing. I had enough to make green bean soup (a summer favorite) just once and the rest were consumed in the garden. I love them raw!

Three crops that I planted at home did really well this year. The Swiss chard was amazing and just keeps on producing, to the point where we almost can't look at it anymore. The beets were so delicious, but I only really had enough for two dinners (with some leftovers to put on salads).

But the real standout was a new crop for me this year: kale. I'll be honest, I didn't like to eat kale in spring. I do love it as an ornamental. But I've learned that if I grow something, I'm much more likely to eat it and I was hoping that would be the case with this nutrient-packed superfood.

When it became clear that I planted way too many seeds in the new raised bed, I transplanted the thinned seedlings to bare spots in the circle garden by the house. To my surprise, they almost all grew and not a single critter (wild or domesticated) bothered them one bit. I still think they are gorgeous and worth planting just for that, but it turns out I love eating it too.

I planted three varieties: Redbor Kale, Rainbow Lacinato Kale and Nero di Tuscana Kale

For eating purposes my favorite has been the Nero di Tuscana, which has slim, dark leaves.

I know that kale chips are all the rage, and trust me, I've tried them. I think I tried them five separate times and every time I hated them. They sort of turned into salty dust no matter what I did.

And then I found this recipe and I'm hooked. I crave this salad all the time. It's so good. In fact, since I discovered it, this is the ONLY way I've eaten kale. I've also taken it to a couple parties where it was a huge hit, and I don't think kale is known as a big people pleaser. My recipe is a version of this one although I've changed it so much it doesn't really resemble that one much anymore.

The Impatient Gardener delicious kale salad

A BIG bunch of kale (my favorite for this is Nero di Tuscana, but other varieties work too)
About 3 ounces good parmesan cheese, shaved
One shallot
Juice from one lemon
Teaspoon of lemon zest
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Toasted pine nuts (optional)

Rinse the kale well, remove the back rib and chop crosswise into half-inch wide strips. I wash it again in a salad spinner to make sure no bugs have come along for the ride and that it's very dry.

Chop a shallot finely and combine it with the lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. You can play with the amounts, but I generally like more acid in my dressings so I do at least 50-50. Combine it all and put it in the fridge. I find that the dressing is best if you can let it sit for an hour or more to mellow a little.

Combine the kale with the shaved parmesan. I use my vegetable peeler to get wide strips of cheese. It will seem like a lot of cheese, and in fact it is, but everything else in this salad is super healthy so go for it.

Toss it all together with the dressing (go a little heavier than you would for a regular lettuce salad) and let it sit for 15 minutes or so so the kale gets a touch softer (don't worry, it won't go limp on you). Toss with pine nuts and serve.

If you try it, let me know what you think. 

Don't try to understand the deer (and how to keep them from eating your garden)

Deer are odd creatures. They don't seem to have any rhyme or reason to what they feel like eating on any given day. They stand in front of cars and stare at the passengers. They will stand in a yard just feet away from a house with a pair of dogs going absolutely berserk barking at them without looking like they have a care in the world.

I guess it's time I finally give up on trying to predict what our neighborhood deer are going to do next. The other day I caught one staring at me reading the newspaper on the deck from the ferns. It casually turned and disappeared, sort of like the baseball players in "Field of Dreams." I suspect that's how they view my garden: I built it and they have come.

For years, the first plants they would hit in the garden were the hydrangeas and the lilies. Then they'd come nip the occasional petunia in a pot in the garden or sample a rose. And because I am obviously a slow learner, I usually never did anything about preventing them until they'd already started sampling. The same bad habit holds for this year, but for some reason I thought they were going to skip my house this year. Do not ask what sort delusional thinking allowed me to entertain that idea for even a nanosecond but suffice to say, I was wrong.

The hydrangeas look fine. Even the Annabelle hydrangea, which apparently has proven to be very tasty in the past, remains untouched. I have lilies blooming that I have surprised me with their color; I've never seen them bloom before because the deer always nipped off their buds. Nope, this year, the deer went straight for the hosts. For whatever reason, they've never done a lot of hosta sampling in my yard before, even though I know many other gardeners have experienced the sinking feeling of looking around the garden and finding only stems standing where just a day before were gorgeous bold leaves.

I could show you dozens more pictures just like this, but you get the idea. In the case of poor 'Fat Cat,' they actually ripped it right out of the ground (I recently planted it). Any not-fully grown hosta (which is most of them) has been reduced to stems. They didn't care what color they were or where they were growing, they just mowed them down.

Ultimately, it's my own fault. After 10 years of living a quarter-mile from a state park with a very healthy deer population (I wish they would just stay in the park), I ought to know that the deer are going to eat SOMETHING in my garden. It might not be the lilies or the hydrangeas or the petunias, but it will be something.

In case you're wondering how I fend them off, at least when I'm smart enough to do it, I've tried just about everything you can imagine to keep them away and everything seems to work for a little while. But the least expensive option seems to work the best, so long as I'm thorough about using it and reapply it after a good rain (not a problem this year). This core of this recipe was given to me by my mother who got it from someone else, but I've added a few extras to it that I think help (and they certainly don't hurt).

Homemade deer repellent

4 eggs
1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon black pepper
A couple drops of dishwashing detergent (to help it stick to leaves)
Whole garlic cloves, crushed or smashed (I probably throw 6 in but just put in whatever you have)

Put all the ingredients in a rinsed out gallon milk jug and fill the rest with water. Shake thoroughly. Then set it out in the sun for a few days. You want it to get good and nasty. After it has "fermented" a bit, dilute it about 4:1 and sprinkle it all over everything. I think it's especially helpful to make a "perimeter" around the garden as well as being sure to thoroughly coat any prized or particularly tasty plants. It can create some discoloration on leaves, particularly on blue hostas, but discolored leaves are better than no leaves, right?