January 18, 2022
Planning the Buckhorn Inn Vegetable Garden 2022
As I write this, I am engaged in one of
Careful planning helps to ensure a successful vegetable harvest.
my favorite activities—planning next season’s vegetable garden! The brightly colored seed catalogs have begun arriving, tempting me to order old favorites and experiment with new varieties.
My first step in deciding what to grow is to consult with the Buckhorn Inn chefs. Chef Frank provides key input on herbs that compliment his dishes and on vegetables he can showcase in soups and side dishes. Chef Bob is a gardener himself, and so we coordinate our efforts. Bob is well-known for the luscious heirloom tomato varieties he grows—in fact my mouth is watering just thinking about his lovely summer omelets! We try to grow herbs and veggies that have the biggest impact in the Buckhorn kitchen. We don’t want to repeat the mistake I made when Jack and I married and planted our first vegetable garden together. I was perusing the seed catalog and asked Jack if he thought we should grow parsnips. Thinking I must like them, Jack replied in the affirmative. Thinking he must like them, I ordered the seeds. We have never to this day grown anything that produced as well as those parsnips. We harvested a bushel basket from our small garden. As it turned out, neither of us cared for parsnips! Our friends and neighbors were the recipients of our garden’s parsnips bounty.
Potential New Finds for the Vegetable Garden
As I leaf through the new Burpee catalog, here are some finds that are most intriguing. http://Www.burpee.com. `
Mocha Swirl Hybrid Sweet Pepper—they ripen from green and white to a rich chocolate-red. The compact plants would be perfect for our raised bed garden. The Golden Egg Hybrid Summer Squash promises succulent flavor from the golden-yellow zucchini. `Everleaf Thai Towers basil is container-friendly and grows up to 3 feet tall. Kentucky Blue Pole Beans always do well for us. Last year we also grew asparagus beans. The 18” long pods have a delicious nutty flavor. Kale is popular at the Inn for garden greens omelets, soups, and vegetable sautées. We likely will grow a variety again this year. Perhaps Dazzling Blue, Red Russian, and Tuscan kale. We are saving space for some lettuce, so you can pick a few leaves as you go by to feed Bubble and Squeak! Of course we will grow okra. It is an ornamental plant, and we love Chef Frank’s fried okra as an accompaniment to a southern fish with remoulade sauce dish! We had best success with Go Big, which produces flavorful dark-green 7” long pods.
In our veranda her pots we typically grow basil, chives, cilantro, mint, parsley, rosemary, and sage. This year we may also grow borage for their edible flowers and lemon verbena to flavor fish dishes.
Decisions, decisions! When you visit, please let us know what you are planning to grow in your garden!
January 25, 2021
To-may-to or To-mah-to: Thinking Tomatoes for the Garden
Tomatoes are delicious and have wonderful health benefits.
It may be January, but the garden catalogs are full of photos of ripe, lush, delicious tomatoes! We are deciding which varieties to grow in the Buckhorn Inn gardens this summer. Looking at all the types of tomatoes got us wondering about this garden staple.
Tomatoes are actually the berries of the plant Solanum lycopersicum. Food historians believe that the species originated in South and Central America. Tomatoes were first cultivated for food by the Aztecs of Mexico. The Spanish encountered the tomato when they conquered the Aztec Empire. They brought the tomato back to Europe. The popularity of the fruit spread to European colonies worldwide in the 16th century.
The tomato is very versatile and can be used raw in salads or cooked for sauces and soups. Tomato juice is a popular beverage. Even green tomatoes are delicious breaded and fried. They are also used in salsa and gazpacho. I recently learned that tomatoes are best kept unwashed at room temperature. In the refrigerator they quickly lose their flavor.
Tomatoes Are Health Powerhouses
A tomato is only 22 calories, but is full of nutrients with a variety of health benefits. One tomato provides about 40% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin C. It also supplies vitamin A, vitamin K, and potassium. Their red color comes from the antioxidant lycopene which is tied to heart benefits and may support vision. And finally the liquid and fiber in the tomato may boost digestive health. http://www.health.com
New Jersey selected the tomato as their state vegetable. Arkansas was more determined to be botanically correct and named the South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato both its state fruit and its state vegetable! Tomato juice became the official drink of Ohio in 1965.
Be sure to watch this space for the final decisions on what we will be planting for the Buckhorn Inn kitchen!
August 25, 2020
Cherry Tomatoes Fresh From Buckhorn Inn Garden
Don’t you love those luscious, sweet, end-of-summer cherry tomatoes? They pop in your mouth with such bright flavor. We have grown several varieties of these small tomatoes here at Buckhorn Inn. One of the most prolific this year was our heirloom Yellow Pear tomatoes. They fruit is bright yellow and they are deliciously tangy. We also have had great success with Shimmer, Honeycomb, Napa Grape, Mighty Sweet, and Black Pearl. They look beautiful served together in a salad! Our chefs also have enjoyed using them in “farmer’s omelets” showcasing our garden-fresh veggies. http://www.burpee.com/vegetables
Each tomato has a slightly different flavor profile.
Tomato History
Food historians believe cherry tomatoes are a modern version of South American wild tomatoes. According to archeological evidence, Central American farmers grew the first domestic strains of these small tomatoes. The Incas and Aztecs farmed tiny pea-size fruit around 700 A.D. You may not realize that large tomatoes are actually a mutation of the cherry varieties. The first cultivated tomatoes were berry-small and housed only two cavities for seeds.
We do not know who gets credit for bringing tomatoes to Europe. The first description of small tomatoes in print appears in a 1623 illustrated book of plants. The fruits reached wild popularity in the 1970s when British chain Marks & Spencer worked with local growers and food scientists to develop a new cherry tomato that was very sweet and shelf-stable.
We hope you are enjoying a bountiful crop! If you have more tomatoes than you can use fresh, why not oven dry some of them? That is what we have been doing. These little flavor bombs are great for salads, pasta topping, or snacking. They burst with intense tomato flavor. And it couldn’t be more easy.
Oven-Dried Cherry Tomatoes
35 cherry tomatoes
1 Tablespoon of salt
Herbs, optional
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut tomatoes in half horizontally and place on the sheet, sides touching and cut side up. Sprinkle with salt and let sit about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with chopped basil, oregano, or parsley. Bake for 2 1/2 to 3 hours until the halves are about 3/4 of their original size and are deep red in color. You may keep them for a month or so in an airtight container in the refrigerator or they may be frozen.
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