Fermented carrots

Our winter special deliveries have depleted our supply of fermented carrots. We bought 20 kilos of carrots and a couple of rutabagas from another local organic farmer and started cleaning and shredding.

For a couple jars of course mix with rutabaga and tarragon snd salt of course.

And a few jars of fine shredded carrots with shredded fresh ginger, garlic and salt (1.5%).

It should be ready (well fermented by the ambient lactic acid bacteria) and should last until August when the new carrots come.

Now back to the main winter jobs of koji growing and miso making.

Roots

I’ll need more fermented roots for summer sales. Until I have my own roots in the fall I have to go to the store and buy some if the quality is good and ecologically grown.

Carrots, beets, rutabagas, turnips, daikon, onions, garlic, salt, etc. in different combinations.

Tilling

And a few more tiny rows of onions and carrots. More later!

Potatoes

In the ground

I’ve gotten compost out on all the vegetable circles, 2 rows each of carrots and onion sets and of potatoes as an early attempt to get an extra early start.

This seldom works very well, but maybe.

Carrots

A lota carrots to take care of.

We can’t eat them all now and they don’t keep well, so ferment them. We picked out 15 kg nice big ones, washed and peeled and then grated them.

Mixed in salt (1.5%) and flavoring like garlic, caraway seed or ginger.

Harvest

This garden summer we have had a cool july followed by a hot august, now it’s cool again and seems like harvest time has come early – all of a sudden. It’s quite normal of course, but always comes as a surprise. This year we have had more time, so why not harvest early (in time) instead of waiting for the rainy snowy fall weather. The potatoes were big, so they are all in the root cellar a few weeks earlier than usual. Most of the onions too.

The pumpkins were getting ripe fast, so we picked them imediately in order to keep the rodents from eating too many.

The carrots too, in order to keep the carrot fly worms from getting established, and so that we can make a batch of lactic acid pickled carrot tomorrow when it rains.

It feels good to have so much fall work done already. We can even get started on the winter digging.

New start

My early trial plantings and sowing hasn’t done so well in this years April weather. I thought it might be warm early, but the cold and dry came back.

Now it’s supposed to rain and get warmer, so I’ll try again.

I thought the tilth would be bad this year because the turned dirt didn’t freeze very deep in the warm winter.

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But the tilth is great, especially with a good tilling.

Now for some raised beds and potatoes, onions and carrots.

And for some rain and warmer weather.

Early test

Still a month early, but the sun is warm, the dirt is drying and warming up and I’ve put out compost, so why not try an early start. I put in 6 potatoesin one small bed and onions and carrots in another.

I might as well – see what happens.

And by the way, I won’t be at the market tomorrow saturday and probably not till after the restrictions are lifted.

Souring

We needed to make more pickles to sell at the fermentation day in Uppsala in april. Now the event will most likely not happen because of the virus, but we do it anyway. They keep well and can be sold during the summer as usual.

We bought 20 some kilos of organic carrots and cabbage and more jars.

We cleaned and grinded and pounded and measured and mixed and put into jars for fermentation.

Carrots

Sauerkraut

This will be ready for the fermentation day market in 5 weeks. And if that doesn’t happen, this stuff will usually keep for years.

Sour carrots

We need more lactic fermented carrots, and our own carrots are growing slow, so we bought some.

This should last till we can make more from our own.