Two Olde Dawgs: Vegepod harvest

By Ian Leatt.

Taking stock of the Vegepod harvest.

The nights are drawing in, The rain has finally started to drop, The warm summer nights are cooling down, It’s time to harvest my crop. –Ian Leatt

Having first planted the vegetable seeds in the Vegepod in mid-May, it was exciting to see how the results were going to turn out. Lessons have been learnt along the way. Plans are now in place for next year. Let’s talk about the successes and failures.

Like all vegetable growers, you learn that distance and spacing is important between rows. The right amount of sun and water is equally as important. Seems like we forgot some old lessons. Let me explain.

The young celery plugs were planted on the edge, some 8 inches apart, leaving enough room to grow and spread—or that is what I initiallythought. Boy does it need a lot of water. Alongside these, a single rowof green onions. That was my first mistake: celery grows much biggerthan I originally estimated, covering the young seeds of the greenonions, which take some time to germinate. Honestly no success. Thegreen onions are still trying to grow some 90 days from planting. Lessonlearnt.

Then came the radish. We all know that radish grows rapidly and within 55 days we were eating them, although in truth, all leaf and not much root. Perhaps thinning would help for a better crop?

Then six rows of onions. I must admit I was pretty excited to grow onions because I use them a lot in cooking. They started great. But what I didn’t realize at the time was, onions do not need as much water as celery, consequently they started to rot, from too much water. Lesson learnt.

The final couple of rows were dedicated to carrots. They take some time to grow but were successful. It seems they like a lot of water and soft soil, in part to help the root grow strong and true. The tops were pretty long and I had fears that it was all show, however the proof was in my patience with the resulting good-sized carrots.

Lessons

• Don’t plant seed green onions too close to fast-growing vegetables, they need lots of light. • Onions do not like a lot of water. • Thinning radish will help with a better crop.

All in all, the Vegepod produced and I call the first year a success. The enjoyment of course is always in lessons learned, and I feel I have learnt enough to make changes to my crop for next year and hope to enjoy the fruits of continued labour as the years progress.

Ratatouille.

Ratatouille

Here is what you will need:

1 onion, sliced into thin rings 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 medium eggplant, sliced 2 zucchini, sliced 2 medium yellow squash, sliced 4 Roma (plum) tomatoes, sliced 2 ½ tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 4 sprigs fresh thyme Salt and pepper to taste

How to:

Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit.

In a large casserole dish, pour 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil. Place the sliced tomatoes and parsley in the dish, spread the minced garlic on top, then add the sliced onion.

Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. Using your mandolin, carefully slice the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash very thin.

Arrange the sliced vegetables over the tomato, onions and garlic in the dish, alternating vegetables and overlapping them so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Cover the dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside.

Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see the tomato sauce bubbling up around them.

Ratatouille can be served alone, or with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, or with some crusty French bread. Serve as a main course or on a small plate as an appetizer.

I trust you will find, as I again did the other day, that this makes for a great hearty vegetarian dish!