The Extreme Gardener

This is the time of year for one of my favorite greens, sugarloaf-type chicory (chicorium intybus). There is no lettuce that can compare to a sugarloaf’s crunchy, very sweet and faintly bitter taste, in my humble opinion. Best of all, it’s early December and we are still harvesting sugarloaves right out of the garden, no greenhouse or coldframe.

We’ve had a few nights down to about 10 degrees F, but a thick covering of maple leaves is keeping the sugarloaves in good shape, and a pea fence laid over the top prevents the deer (who are especially fond of these chicories) from getting them all before we do. There is now some damage to the heads from freezing, but with a little trimming, there are still plenty of crisp, sweet leaves. What’s in the colander below is one untrimmed head, which is plenty for a two person salad.

I have been working on establishing a naturalised population of sugarloaves in our gardens, with good success, though I’m still trying to understand their cycles better. My limited understanding is not a hindrance, though, because they seem to like it here and do just fine on their own.

We have about 4 different patches, corresponding to 4 different parent varieties: Greenlof, Cornet D’Anjou, Sugarhat, and Blanc de Milan. There is, of course, crossing going on, which is fine - I’m not maintaining a particular variety. I want to develop a hardy strain for our garden.

Blanc de Milan, featured in all the photos here, is the latest strain to be added to the mix, and I am very impressed with it. Above is a cheesecake photo of a primo specimen harvested several weeks ago. Notice the curving, wide leaf veins, the curling leaf edges, the nice thick cylindrical form, and the shear size of it - now that’s what I like in a chicory!

Purchased seed was sown in 2006, and the plants that survived the winter unprotected bolted in 2007. I pushed the tall seed stalks over towards another part of the bed, collected some seed and allowed some seed to fall on to the soil in the bed. The plants here are from the seed that fell, so I guess you could call them volunteers, except that I aimed the mother plants.

Our black currants are ripening, so I have been making sure to get them before the wandering gangs of marauding wild turkeys do. This variety is Consort. Eating them fresh and raw is an acquired taste, and I haven’t quite acquired it yet, especially when there are blueberries and raspberries ripening at the same time. These currants would be probably be great for jam or jelly, but better yet, I figured out the “killer app,” at least for us: black currant vinegar. This is really easy. I pick the currants, fill a canning jar about halfway with currants and then top the jar off with homemade cider vinegar. Screw on the lid and leave it in the sun until the vinegar has taken on a deep ruby color. We have a flat black rock in front of the house for this purpose, but a sunny window would be fine. That’s it.

When we’re ready to use it, I open a jar, run it through the blender and use it seeds, pulp and all. It’s my favorite salad dressing - all you have to add is a bit of tamari or something salty - it doesn’t need oil (my opinion). It’s also great on steamed winter squash. I made four quarts of it last year, which got us through the winter and into May.