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winter harvest

Growing Sugarloaf (Pan di Zucchero) Chicory

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One of the chicories that I planted in late summer for a fall crop is Sugarloaf chicory. If you aren’t familiar with this vegetable, it is a leafy crop in the same family as lettuces and sunflowers. Sugarloaf makes a tall head, similar to a Romaine lettuce. The inner, packed-together leaves are yellowish in color as a result of not being exposed to sunlight. The outer leaves that fold loosely around the head are darker green. All the leaves are good to eat.

Chicories in the garden -- a red radicchio in front and a taller green sugarloaf in back.
See a Sugarloaf growing behind red radicchio.

You may have seen seeds for this variety of chicory under another name. In Italy, it is called Pan di Zucchero. In France it is called Pain de Sucre. Some seed companies sell seeds for this type of chicory using these other names.

Sugarloaf chicory in the kitchen

The “sugar” part of the name does not mean that Sugarloaf is missing the bitterness that comes with all the other chicories. It does mean, though, that there is a little sweetness along with the bitterness.

I’ve used the leaves from this year’s plants in salads and as cooked greens, and both versions have been good. This may be because I harvested the chicory in winter. Cooler weather keeps the inherent bitterness of most chicories to a minimum.

One great feature of the Sugarloaf chicory is that it can stand up to cooking without turning slimy like spinach. If texture is one of your main objections to most cooked greens, this is one to try.

Growing Sugarloaf chicory

I grew this chicory as a spring crop one year, many years ago, and it didn’t make the tightly packed head that it is supposed to. This year, as a fall-grown crop, it did. Not heading-up didn’t stop me from using and enjoying the plants those years ago, but harvesting the classic tight heads from my own garden feels like a big win.

Long head of sugarloaf chicory lying on a countertop.
Long, narrow head of Sugarloaf chicory

Sugarloaf is a long-time-to-maturity crops. It needs close to three months of perfect weather. “Perfect” would, I think, involve no days over about 85 degrees F, and none below 32 degrees F. Since that kind of perfect does not exist in the Southeastern US, where I live and garden, my Sugarloaf chicories have taken four months to mature into those lovely heads of greens.

Head of sugarloaf chicory sliced through crosswise shows the tightly packed leaves in the center
Cross section of sugarloaf chicory shows tightly packed leaves in the core

If you plan to try a spring crop of Sugarloaf, it will be best to start them indoors, in plugs or flats, in the next few weeks. They can be transplanted out to the garden after hardening off (exposure to the great outdoors, an increasing number of hours each day) for a week or so.

The garden soil should have a pH in the 6-7 range, be well-amended with compost, and given an extra boost from a nitrogen-rich fertilizer (try one of the fish fertilizers, or alfalfa).

Soil should be kept moist, but not soggy. Too much water can encourage leaf rots at the base of the plant. If we have another super-soaker of a spring, plants in raised beds may be a bit drier than those in in-ground gardens.

Just like for radicchio, harvest Sugarloaf when the heads feel firm. If plants are left too long in the garden after that point, they may start to elongate, which means they are bolting, which means they are sending up a flowering stalk.

When a plant bolts, it quits putting its effort into new tasty leaves, and switches it all into the flowering stalk. If flowers are the goal, well that’s all ok. If you wanted to eat the lovely leafy part, bolting is not a good thing.

Also growing for harvest in January

Chicories, including radicchios and other chicories (frisée, escaroles), aren’t the only crops still coming to the kitchen from my garden. Also in the garden — still — are more carrots, radishes, lettuces, cilantro, and beets.

None of these are growing in long rows or huge blocks, or in massive quantities, but there is a little bit of everything. I pulled another bunch of carrots yesterday, and it was like finding a rainbow underground.

Bunch of garden carrots in shades of red, orange, and purple, with green leaves still attached.
Fresh garden carrots.

I also have another shallow planter full of arugula coming along. This crop is to use as a “cut and come again” addition to winter salads, sandwiches, and pizza.

Arugula seedlings as a dense planting growing in shallow pot.
Arugula seedlings will provide snippets of flavor to our meals in another week or so.

What is growing in your garden?

A Tale of Two Kales

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Actually, I told part of the story in the previous post. My curly kale made it though our drop to Very Cold Temperatures undamaged, but the Red Russian ended up with some bleaching on the older leaves. There is more to know, though, about these two crops.

The purple-stemmed Red Russian, according to my seed catalogs (which I finally have had a chance to look through!), should grow to be fairly large, 18-30 inches in height, but I haven’t seen it get bigger than the lower end of that range so far. However, we may be eating it faster than it can grow! Most of the catalogs seem to indicate that this kale is more cold-hardy than it turned out to be in my North Georgia garden.

The other kale that I grew this year is the Vates dwarf blue curled. If I had realized how truly dwarf it would be, I would have spaced the plants closer together. I’m ordering seeds for a larger curled kale to grow next, because I want bigger leaves.

Both of these kale varieties taste good to me, but they are definitely different. Leaves of the Red Russian are MUCH more tender and taste sweeter to me. The Vates dwarf curled has tougher leaves; for salad, I chop them very small and let them stand in the dressing for a couple of hours before attempting to eat the them.

Even though they are dwarf, the curliness means that there is more actual leaf for their size than for the Red Russian, so it takes fewer leaves to fill my salad bowl. Mixing the two kinds of kale in one salad, though, makes it lovely to behold and even better to eat.

For both, even though many gardeners say that kale tastes the same when grown right through the summer, the catalogs agree that kale tastes better when grown in cold weather. The cold prompts the plant to store more sugars in the leaves as protection against freezing (sugar-water freezes at a lower temperature than plain water).

I talked with a friend today, though, who really doesn’t like kale, even when it is winter-grown. Since she is an outgoing person who hangs out with gardeners and since kale is so very popular right now, she is faced with many-a bowl full of kale, prepared one way or another.

She is a good sport and eats the kale even when she’d rather not, but for other gardeners, the ease of growing such a nutritious, mild-flavored vegetable that stands in the garden through the winter makes it easy to include some in the winter garden. The only question for those gardeners will be which one, or several, to grow.

When the Garden Gets Slammed By a Very Hard Freeze

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I have a friend who says that gamblers should skip going to Vegas and just plant a garden, instead —  letting those weather dice roll and taking odds on what will yield well, what will do poorly, and what will be a total fail.

In the past bunch of winters, broccoli, cabbages, and nearly all the cool-season greens have produced right through until spring. Gardeners in North Georgia are accustomed to the success of those crops, so, back in October, we all would have said the likelihood of those crops surviving the winter was fairly high. This year, the usual winter crops pretty much ended a few weeks ago when the temperature dropped down near 5 degrees F.

It seemed like it might be useful to have a list of the hardiest crops, for future reference when planning the fall/winter garden, so what follows is such a list:

multiplying onions
shallots
garlic
carrots
winter radishes
green onions
cilantro
spinach
Brussels Sprouts (report from another local gardener)

I’m guessing that parsnips would be ok, too, but I didn’t plant any this year.

The perennial herbs also seem to be struggling with the cold. Most years in winter I can find enough fresh oregano down under the browned stems to use for cooking, but today I could find only a few, tiny leaves. The sage has some good leaves, and I found some usable thyme under the tangle of old stems of that plant, but the rosemary looks pretty rough.

Also, since so many of the weeds that I depend upon for bunny food were bitten back by the hard freeze, I’ve been growing wheat greens indoors to feed to my pet bunnies. Without these greens, my bunny-food bill would be much higher!

We’ve been growing sprouts in the kitchen for ourselves, too, to add some fresh, home-grown greens to our meals. With the loss of many of the outdoor crops, we are lucky to have options for continued “gardening” indoors.

If other gardeners can let me know of additional crops that have done well in the cold, we can add them to the list, to help in planning next winter’s garden. Hope you all are keeping warm!

Garden Plans and Events

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After my very eventful December, it has taken some time for the pattern of my days to seem familiar again. I realized this afternoon, though, while hoeing out a few weeds and spreading more mulch in the onion/shallot/garlic bed, that everything feels just about normal. Parts of the garden even LOOK normal, in spite of the drop to 5 degrees Fahrenheit a week or so back.

The onions, garlic, and shallots mostly are vibrantly green, firm and growing. Nearly every other crop above ground has gone to mush  – even the chickweed that I feed to my bunnies! Underground crops, the carrots and winter radishes, seem to have survived the unusual cold pretty well. Only some individual plants that poked up out of the ground were affected.

At the little farm where we volunteer, the winter greens all look very damaged, except for the spinach. That bit of information is probably worth remembering, for future winter gardens.

Tomorrow I’ll be working more in the yard. My compost pile is stacked pretty high with nearly-finished compost that I plan to move onto one of my garden beds, rather than risk letting the nutrients wash out across the back yard. I’d rather have them soaking into my garden! I hope to spend some time planning what to grow where, too.

My last, most favorite seed catalog finally arrived, which means I can place a seed order for my garden whenever I’ve completed the plan. I’ll also be ordering seeds for a Seed Starting class that I’ll be giving in February. Those seeds will all be UGA-recommended varieties, some of which are heirloom. I’m planning to order from a source that sells untreated seeds, so that organic gardeners won’t have to worry about accidentally introducing unknown fungicides or systemic pesticides into their gardens.

The first class I am planning for this year, though, is a Planning for Seed Saving class. It’s scheduled for the 28th at the Extension office, and I’ll have some seeds to share at that class, too, in honor of National Seed Swap Day, which falls each year on the last Saturday in January (this year it’s on the 25th).

I always enjoy meeting more gardeners, so I am really looking forward to both of these classes!