The garden is a revolving wheel of ripening fruits and vegetables right now: each week something new rises to the top of the “must pick” list, then gives over to the next. It’s not that there’s a new ripening: it’s that a crop reaches critical mass and you MUST do something before the excess you can’t use yourself goes to waste.

At Monument Farm, Joe had more cucurbits than he and Tony could use, so he brought sackfuls of patty pan squashes and cucumbers to the Food Bank last Tuesday. 

Down in Burton, the peach tree of Jim & Linda Rogers had MORE than enough for jam, for Ann’s cobbler, for my evening’s peaches-n-cream, with plenty left over. I dropped by with a reciprocal head of ‘Buttercrunch’ lettuce and found them deep in the jam-making. The place smelled heavenly, because “we found a recipe that uses lemon rind and crystallized ginger,” she explained. “Please, take some more!”

At GreenDale farm last week, it was cilantro’s turn to dominate. All our conversations ran like this—

ADRIENNE: “I made cilantro pesto last night—first time I’d even had it. REALLY yummy.”

KAREN: “Hard to believe it’s so much better than basil pesto!”

BILL:  ”We made cilantro pesto last night, and this morning I had it on toast. Sooo good!” 

This particular cilantro managed to feed three couples because it’s a HEDGE—two, six-foot-long rows of the stuff, each plant flowering at four feet high.

It caught the eye of Nghia the Vietnamese FedEx guy, prompting Bill to offer however much Nghia wanted to take away. 

I too came back for an armful, en route to my yoga teacher’s potluck. “What will I do with all this?” Amy asked. Can you guess?

“Make Cilantro Pesto!”

In a blender or food processor, pour about 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons real butter. Add 1 tsp salt, 3-4 crushed garlic cloves, about 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts (I use a small iron fry-pan, shaking the nuts for 4-5 minutes until they’re turning from gold to brown), about 1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese, and about two cups of cilantro leaves, loosely packed, then hit the “grind” button. You’ll probably have to do some careful jabbing with the end of a wooden spoon, along with more pourings-in of olive oil, before this rather dry mixture will work down into a paste. But once it has, adjust it for your own taste—more nutty? more cheesy? more garlicky? Then either serve it immediately on cooked pasta, green beans, or sauteed zucchini noodles—zuke sliced so thin (1/8″) that when sauteed for 3-4 minutes, it comes to an al dente just like fat fettucine noodles—or store it in small jars in the frig, packed to the brim and topped with a bit of olive oil to keep oxygen from darkening it.

Kohlrabi Pickle

This week’s rising crop is kohlrabi. I’ve never had it before this year, but turns out it’s good raw as a crudité, or it can be cut up and roasted with other root vegetables in the oven, coated in olive oil and mediterrean seasonings such as an herbes de provence mix.

Before Nghia left with his armful of cilantro, he reciprocated with this asian recipe, a bracing appetizer or side dish that’s pictured above. When I arrived at GreenDale Farm on Tuesday, Bill came out from the house with an Tousley bowl full of this pickle, eager to offer Bob a taste.

Trim and peel a fresh kohlrabi, then slice into 1/8″ slabs and quarter them. In a large soup bowl, mix 1/2 cup white or rice vinegar, 1/4 cup water, 1-2 pressed garlic cloves, 1/4 teas. salt, enough sugar to take the sourness away, and a teaspoon of hot garlic Sriracha sauce (or whatever hot pepper sauce you have in the cupboard.)

Bill said, “Nghia told me, ‘This is really good with steak! Before you grill the steak, cut off the beef fat, render it, and use it as a baste for the steaks, then serve this pickle to cut through the fat.’ Isn’t it refreshing?”

With each week’s new crop, there’s new recipes, new experiences, new friends with which to share this elemental experience of food. What riches lie in garden generosity!

Looking on the (almost) Bright Side

I hope you read Susan Reimer’s article in today’s Beachcomber (8/18) on the delayed harvest of tomato, corn, and other summer crop classics. Good article, Susan!

But while the coolness of this summer is definitely a drag on the fruiting veg, let’s choose to be positive and look on the (almost) bright side. The leafy vegetables have been more than happy this year. Some might call it a “Cabbage Year”, but hey, that’s not so bad!

Chard, spinach, beets, turnips, kohlrabi, lettuce, parsley—all of these have loved this cooler weather. The chard at GreenDale farm has been growing leaves a foot and a half long for two months, with no sign of relenting. The roots of beets, turnips, and kohlrabi are the size of softballs, with tall, lush greens.

Granted, GreenDale Farm grows off the power of alpaca poop and plenty of sunshine. In contrast, my at-home “hole in the forest” can only get chard and beets to half that size. But in my garden’s half-shade, and in this cool weather, my succession plantings of lettuce have grown well.

Yes, my tomatoes are green, and their numbers sparse. But let’s not mistake last summer’s conditions for a new “normal.” My garden records over many years show that half the time my tomatoes ripened in mid-August; half the time, not until MID-SEPTEMBER. And some years, my tomatoes go room-mate with my Thanksgiving guests.

Great Conditions for Planting that Fall Garden

Those of you trying to start your fall garden will appreciate this week’s cooler temperatures. It’s warm enough for seeds to sprout, but not so blistering hot that small seedlings or transplants will shrivel in the heat. Seeds to plant now include arugula, carrots (keep soil moist), lettuce, spinach, endive, radishes, and cabbage to let overwinter for eating next spring. Heck, I’m STILL making good coleslaw out of my over-wintered cabbage.

Or you can buy transplants of lettuce, broccoli, fall cabbage, brussels sprouts or cauliflower from VIGA vendors or our local stores, on offer now. Farm stands, such as Pacific Potager on the south end or Island Meadow Farm around the corner from Minglement, will also sell transplants.

Divide and Propagate Now

After summer’s peak, when stems are hardening into woodiness, is an excellent time to take cuttings from shrubs. In my garden, that will be buxus (box), hydrangea, cistus, daphne, and rockroses. I like to take heel cuttings: you pull away a minor stem from where it attaches to a major stem, pulling away a little cuticle of the joint with your cutting. Dip in rootone, stick into a soil/peat mix, and put into a warm, moist place. 

The Arboretum Foundation has an excellent, yet brief guide to propagation, called “Cuttings Through the Year.” Only $8.50, including tax & shipping. To get it, click on the link above, or call 206-325-4510 between 10am—4pm, Tuesday–Sunday.

And if you like poppies, clip and bag some poppy seed capsules now, before they shatter and scatter. If we’re “lucky” enough to get snow this winter, you can sprinkle those stored-away seeds onto the snow and get very good germination toward next summer’s flowers. 

Zucchini, Coming On Strong

I’m reaching out to the two “Zucchini Taste-Off” winners at last week’s farmer’s market— Risa Stahl for her “Grilled Zucchini Quiche” and Karolyn Hoffman for her zucchini “mapleicious” cupcakes. I’ll post those recipes when they return my phone calls.

For me, this year’s zucchini surprise has been how good it is when grilled. Slices of round ‘Eight Ball’ (also sold as ‘Ronde de Nice’) are as easy to flip as pancakes, and they make a good base for grilled meats or asian noodles. 

Before you fire up the coals, take a moment to slice your zuke  1/4″ or thicker. Set the slices in a colander, salt all sides, and let them sweat while your coals are prepping. 20-30 minutes later, rinse off the salt and pat dry, then rub with fresh cut garlic and some olive oil. Thrown down on the grill, they take just a couple minutes per side. Add a little worcester sauce or steak juices—now THIS is essence of August!

UPDATE:  Risa Stahl’s Zucchini-poloosa Winning Recipe for Grilled Zucchini Quiche

Preheat oven to 375
Assemble 1 basic pie crust
Brush zucchini slices with olive oil & balsamic vinegar and grill on both sides
Chop, then Sautee one onion
Roll out dough and put in pie pan
Sprinkle grated cheddar cheese onto crust
Spread onions onto cheese
Arrange Zucchini on top of cheese and onions (see picture)
Combine eggs, milk, parmesan, flour, salt, rosemary
Pour liquid mixture onto the other ingredients
Bake 40-45 minutes

With the High Pressure Sweet Spot FINALLY lodging itself above our part of the world, we’re in for some HEAT this weekend. Be sure to keep your tomatoes watered regularly, as they bask in exactly the kind of weather they need to ripen. Containers will need daily watering, your lettuces may need shading, and the gardener of your household may need a strategic glass of iced tea, some afternoon.

Want to Learn to Can?

And a few other techniques for preserving the products of your vegie garden?  Here is a word from Cathy Fulton, who is putting on the Food Preservation Fair this weekend.

Vashon’s Second Annual Food Preservation Fair
Saturday, August 14, 10 am to 2 pm

This year, we will be located just north of the Farmer’s Market (in the Vashon Physical Therapy parking lot north of the Village Green). 

The fair will include several stations and demonstrations of food preservation methods. Ask questions, discover resources, and get advice from Vashon Island food preservers about:
  * Steam canning
  * Dehydrating and Solar Drying
  * Pressure Canning and Boiling Water Canning
  * Low Sugar Jams
  * Fermentation (pickles, sauerkraut, and vinegars)
  * Steam Juicing
  * Freezing
  * Dry-pack canning 

Learn about Vashon’s new Food Preservation Equipment Library and how you can borrow equipment for a nominal donation.

Show up anytime between 10 am and 2 pm and visit the stations that interest you.  A donation of $5 at the door is suggested but not required. The Vashon Island Growers Association is giving away $2.00 coupons good for produce at the Farmer’s Market to the first 100 donors.

More information at: http://vashonfoodsummit.org/PreservationFair/

  

Yuli's Green Onion Pancakes—recipe below

 

 First, the news:

IF YOU’RE THINKING OF CANNING:  I ran into Cathy Fulton at the True Value; she was looking over cookware for her upcoming “Food Preservation Fair” on Saturday, August 14 from 10—2. She’ll give a PREVIEW this Wednesday afternoon (that’s today) from 2–5pm at the VIGA market in downtown Vashon. Topics will include hot-bath canning, steam juicing, pressure canning, drying, fermentation, freezing, dry-pack canning, and the new EQUIPMENT LENDING PROGRAM. 

FOOD BANK FARM sent its first harvest to an off-Island food bank this week: White Center was the lucky recipient. Sharing with other food banks is part of this year’s mission. Congrats to Jenn and her volunteer growers!

WINTER GARDENING is starting in our local small farms. Chandler Briggs of Island Meadow Farm has been transplanting fall brassica starts, put brussel sprouts in the ground last week, cabbages, leeks, and purple sprouting broccoli in the coming weeks. Jenn Coe of the Food Bank Garden is planting cabbage, broccoli, collards, kale, carrots—”everything there is still time to plant!” And yes, for some long-growing plants like cauliflower, the winter window is already closed! She recommends Territorial Seed Company’s Fall Planting chart, while Rob Peterson of Plum Forest Farm touts the Maritime Northwest Gardening Guide. If you’d like to read more on this subject, here’s a link to my article printed last year in the Beachcomber: “Make Way for Winter.”

FLOR-IFFIC!  I spotted this van parked in front of the VIGA stand this Tuesday. It’s the rig of IslandGirl Ride Service (463-4602). So if you need somebody else to drive you, here’s her offer: “Chill. You Sit. I’ll Drive.” 

If you grow food, wouldn’t you want to COOK food?

I’m grateful for my garden for many reasons, including its demand that I learn to cook. When you plant a big veggie garden (and I planted TWO), it would truly be a Lost Opportunity not to learn how to use all that green stuff. And here we are at the height of the growing season: chards, lettuces, beets, peas, kales, parsley, carrots, potatoes…it’s all bursting out of its beds, a constant parade of green through your kitchen door.

How to make use of it all?  Here are some tips—

GET SOME VEGIE-CENTRIC COOKBOOKS:  Through winter and early spring, I got myself a few cookbooks aimed squarely at handling garden produce. One of the best is actually a pair of books, both by Sylvia Thompson: The Kitchen Garden, which tells you how to grow, and The Kitchen Garden Cookbook, which shares many tricks of food prep and preservation both in a conversational narrative and in recipes.

Also in my constantly-on-the-counter stack: Andrea Chesman’s “The Garden-Fresh Vegetable Cookbook, Janet Ballantyne’s Joy of Gardening Cookbook, Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and a magazine from Vegatarian Times called Farmers’ Market Cookbook.

MAKE VEGGIES THE MAIN INGREDIENT: We’re supposed to eat less meat anyway. A good inspiration can be Asian cookbooks: they seem to have more recipes where the veg, not the meat, is the featured eatable. Vietnamese cooking in particular emphasizes fresh vegetables: think of their rice-paper salad rolls wrapped in lettuce leaves, or a bowl of pho with its companion plate of herbs & sprouts.

Vietnamese Cabbage Salad: For lunch today, I shredded white cabbage as fine as possible, added a handful of minced basil, mint, and cilantro, dressed it with vinaigrette of 2 T fish sauce and 2 T lime juice, sweetened the dressing with Splenda, and topped this salad with chopped peanuts. VERY refreshing on a warm day.

TALK TO YOUR FOOD-SAVVY FRIENDS: I get great ideas from fellow gardeners and foodies. For instance, my food bank buddy Mary Margaret told me to boil turnip greens in some broth spiked with cider vinegar. After my co-gardener Bill told me he’d enjoyed new potatoes and peas in a cream sauce, I tried something similar using milk, in a white bechamel sauce, instead. 

Green Onion Pancakes (or Turnovers): Ny friend Yuli, who grew up in Taiwan, showed me this recipe that her mother used to make. If you ever have a great abundance of green onions, chives, or garlic greens, THIS is the recipe for you! Every “pancake” is actually a pouch of white bread dough, rolled out into 6-8″ tortillas (my pasta roller worked great for this) and then stuffed with at least a half-cup of minced green onion heavily moistened with peanut oil + S & P. After you cover the center with onion, wrap the edges up and to the center, pinch together into a pouch, then press it flat between your palms  to 1/2″ thick; alternatively, you can fold the pancake over into a turnover form. Put about 3-4 in a big skillet with a little peanut oil, heated, and cook each each side until golden (about ten minutes total). If you google this recipe, you’ll find most recipes use less green onion and a more elaborate, “snail-shell” construction, but Yuli’s method is simpler AND uses much more onion.

MAKE YOUR OWN READY-TO-EAT FOODS—My mother gave me an ancient “Seal-A-Meal” contraption, which is proving QUITE HANDY for processing many greens. It’s easy to get tired of sauteed leaves, so I’ve been looking for ways to dress up and store (read hide away for later?) the chard-choy-kale-spinach-cabbage abundance.

Because we enjoy spinach quiche, I’ve braised and “seal-a-mealed” plenty of 1-cup and 2-cup packets of spinach and chard. I could also use this spinach in soups, as a base for sole florentine, or with ricotta or potatoes to make spinach gnocchi, ravioli, or a lasagne.

To add special treats to a noodle soup, we make wontons filled with white cabbage, chard, broccoli or broccoli raab, plus a little pork and/or shrimp. Store in a freezer bag, and just drop a few into chicken broth and simmer for 3-4 minutes.

Tortelli di Erbette, or Swiss Chard Ravioli—(above) My summer’s big success story is ravioli with chard, a Florentine feast-dish for St. Giovanni’s Day, June 24th. Because there’s a lot of steps to this (making pasta, rolling it out, steaming the chard, making the filling, and FINALLY filling the raviolis), I like to spread the project over two days.

First, make a batch of fresh pasta: 1 cup flour to 2 eggs, mixed, kneaded until smooth, let rest for at least an hour. Take 10-20 swiss chard leaves, remove stems, rinse the leaves and braise them in a large skillet in their drip-water until wilted. Drain, chop finely, and when cool squeeze out as much water as you can (a rolling pin works well). To this mound of green add a not-quite-equal quantity of ricotta cheese, half again as much grated parmesan, an egg, a pinch nutmeg and 1/2 teas. salt.

Both pasta dough and filling can then rest in the frig until you’ve got an hour to make the ravioli. When ready, divide the dough into approx. 1/4 cup chunks. Squeeze one through your pasta machine to thickness 5 (the next-to-last setting). Lay this long rectangle of dough on a floured table; down its lower length place a rounded tablespoon of chard filling every 2-3 inches—usually 4-6 per rectangle. Fold the upper half of the pasta to cover the chard mounds, press down between each mound and cut between, then seal the cut edges with a fork. Place on a floured baking sheet: you can then stick this in the freezer to freeze individual raviolis to pop into a freezer bag, or go ahead and boil water to cook the raviolis for 5-8 minutes.  10-12 raviolis will fill your plate. It’s delicious in a cream sauce, a red sauce, or just in a garlic olive oil sauce with scraped fresh parmesan.

And if you want a thematic dinner to serve before the Vashon FUR BALL, google “Merde di can,” a similar concoction that turns beet greens into a brownish, tapered gnocchi. I daren’t translate it for you here—this is a FAMILY newspaper, you know.

Silver and Kay White walk past their soft-fruit net-house. Note that the roof is tied back: it will be rolled out when the first fruit ripens.

Last week, I shared with you an e-rant from Sally Fox, last year’s president of the garden club. She complained that, while in years past she enjoyed a large harvest of raspberries, “This year, I have harvested FIVE.  Why?  The birds came and ate them ALL.  But why? For two years we shared nicely. This year it is very different. Clues?”

So I asked around and, turns out, everybody is having trouble saving their raspberries from birds. Finally, I called Bob Norton, one of the founders of the Vashon Fruit Club. “Yes, I’ve heard that complaint from everyone, and I have a theory: want to hear it?”

Of course… 

Bob’s explanation has to do with our cool spring. This time of year, fruit-eating birds such as robins, starlings, and cedar waxwings eat predominantly the fruit of Prunus avian or bird cherry, also known as the mazzard. This wild tree, says Norton, is the parent of our domestic eatable cherry and is still often used as a grafting stock for orchard cherries. These tall, slender trees bloom in March, lighting up our woodland margins in clouds of dainty, dingy white.

This year, says, Norton, our spring was so cool that the bees didn’t emerge until after the mazzards flowered. With no bees to reach the flowers, there’s no pollination: thus, none of those wild cherries that the birds prefer to eat. Though robins, for instance, are adapted to eat primarily cherries, they’re certainly put a peck into any soft fruit they can reach—like your strawberries, raspberries, or currants.

“The problem is probably worse this year because we had such good bird-raising conditions last year,” Bob conjectured. “The birds had a good hatch and probably more chicks survived to this year, so now there’s more competition for food. They’re even in my plums, these days.”

So if you’ve got berries, you’ve probably also got birds gobbling them down. 
What to do?

The only real solution is to tent your berries with bird-netting. For raspberries, it’s probably too late, said Bob, but he warned, “blueberries are next, so if you want to keep them for yourself, better net them now.”

Bird-netting—black webbing at 1″ intervals—is available at our local hardware stores. My friend Sandy, who has grown blueberries for decades, thinks that draping the bushes in tulle—the same fabric as ballerina tutus—works better. “I clothes-pin tulle net fabric over them when they’re loaded with berries.  You can buy ‘bird proof’ netting, but the mesh on it is large enough that the clumps of berries get tangled in it and it makes picking the bushes a hassle.” 

Yes, when branches grow through the netting, there’s no way to lift the netting without ripping off leaves—and berries. And birds can get tangled in the nets, too. I recently participated in a discussion on www.growveg.com about that predicament, one which “G” had that changed her ways.

“ I’ve always shared with the birds, ever since I found a live goldfinch tangled in the previous years’ bird netting.  I cut him out and carefully picked all that black, sticky netting from his wings. He sat rather stunned for awhile on my hand and then jumped on my shoulder, where he sat for several minutes.  It felt like he was saying, “Thank you.”  I haven’t had the heart to use the nasty stuff again.”

Another good, though large-scale solution is to build a berry-house. You may have seen Kay White’s berry enclosure during the VAA Garden Tour: it’s a big square enclosure built with 8′ tall poles and lightweight wooden beams between them, with bird-netting wrapped all around it to make both walls AND a roof. To avoid collecting leaves, Kay’s crew leaves the net-roof rolled back through most of the year, unrolling it over the berries before the shrubs set fruit. It’s a permanent solution that works best if you have many shrubs; maximize the protection by including strawberry beds and grapevines in it.

Ken Miller and Barb Adams on the north end also put a net-house around their berries. He says, “We call it a “room with a view,” looking at all those nice berries. We too can roll the top back.”

I’m not going to net this year because my blueberry bushes are new and in their first year are supposed to be pruned of fruit anyway. Whatever berries escaped my notice, the birds are welcome to. But not next year!

I was going to attend a photography workshop at Anita Halstead’s garden this beautiful Saturday morning. But I’ve been over-subscribed this last month, so when my 14-year-old niece, touring our ravine garden, reached out to a flower and it was a STINGING NETTLE, I realized it’s my own garden (as well as Kelly) that’s screaming for attention.

And so, out with pruners, weed-wacker, and a guilty conscience to beat back July’s unruly growth. Now I KNOW I did a clean-up before the Garden Tour so that I wouldn’t come home and feel bad about my own garden. Yet here’s nettle leaning into the paths of the ravine, an ilex vomatoria blocking the way down my wooden stairs, and a retaining wall that’s disappeared under a rug of hairy geranium. You think you’re keeping the green tide at bay, but just like with the sea and ol’ King Canute, it will sneak its way in somewhere, somehow…

Dig The Reds at DIG

Noticing last week that DIG was offering 30-50% discounts on hardy perennials, I stopped in and asked her about perennials that will still put on a show this late in the growing season.

She waved her hand at “Any of these will work”—and I was Seeing Red. Her front tables was bursting with red penstemon, red montbretia, red sage, raspberry-red gaura, apricot agastache, and coral cape fuchsia. FIELDS of red dahlias surounding fountain, outdoor carpet, big gray ginger jar. That Sylvia: she’s a dab hand with color. Above left, that’s a penstemon with smaller cape fuchsia blooms on the right and montbretia foliage behind; red dahlias are on the right. Below are more dahlias and a lobelia laxiflora which, Sylvia says, “Hummingbirds just adore.”

lobela laxiflora left; red dahlias right

Speaking of “Seeing Red”…

I’ve had some good rants in my email inbox this week. Michelle of Pacific Potager sent me a notice about an organic farm in Washington that lost big crops to a compost they brought in that was contaminated with the herbicide Clopyralid. She wrote, “I know I feel crazy when people tell me what they are adding to their soil, what compost mix they are buying, what they have purchased to “make” their garden… as if they would KNOW what that stuff is…  I always advocate improving your soil in place, with cover crops, compost you make, etc… It takes longer, maybe, but you aren’t adding problems…”

I know when I’ve gone to pick up manure at local farms, I’ve asked whether they’ve sprayed their fields or given the animals any medications that might have passed through the gut still potent. If you’re uncertain about an imported soil amendment, test it in some small, out-of-the-way section of garden first.

And Not Seeing Red

Sally Fox, last year’s Garden Club President, wrote me about her missing raspberries.

“Last year I had HUNDREDS of raspberries — maybe thousands.  This year – I have harvested five.  Why?  The birds came and ate THEM ALL.  But why? For two years we shared nicely.  This year it is very different.  Carolina Nurik of Maury, who sells at the marke,t has had the same problem.  Clues?  Do we have to net our raspberries now?”

Pursuing the situation more, she wrote later, “I heard from Rob Patterson of Plum Forest that it might be because the wild cherry crop was so poor this year – so they have turned to our berries.  He has seen a correlation between cherry crops and berry attacks.” And yet later, “My former east coast riding instructor told me they always had to net their raspberries and that once the birds make a habit of attacking them, it is over – they will be back.”

Anybody else losing their berry crops to birds worse than usually?

Some Summer Reds on the Burton Peninsula

Driving back from DIG, I pondered that whole question of Summer Flowers: after the late spring bloom-party of roses, rhodies, lilacs, irises, and peonies, what’s going to give your garden equal impact during the Days of All Outdoors? Driving up the lead road to the Burton Loop, indeed the lawns looked a little, well, SPARE of flowers.

Still, there ARE some plants that are looking good right now. My favorite cottage near Guv’s Lane had this colorful collection around its chimney: a red rose, red valerian, thread-leaf coreopsis, and shasta daisies.

And around the corner to the left, once again I was Seeing Red: some Shirley Poppies, with red montbretia and more red dahlias behind. 

Lots of Red, Overhead

Finally, this beauty-shot is from Pt. Defiance Park. I had a little time to kill before catching the south-end ferry, so Mom and I walked through the Pt. Defiance Rose Garden. But the beds of hybrid teas and floribundas, though nice, can’t compete with the rose-covered pergola that leads to the entrance. Personally, I think Climbing Roses give more bang for the buck: just one plant will out-shine a bed of a dozen shrub roses. And a climber keeps your ground free for other plants.

So in your garden, if you want a color to ride the rising Green Tide of high summer, think RED. 

from left: Alex and Kathryn True, Little Story, mom Sarah Laine and Canyon, Leslie Patheal, Cathy Fulton, and Jenn Coe.

Jenn Coe put out the call for garlic harvesters last week, and wanting to see how mature garlic looks coming out of the ground, I wrestled the wheelbarrow into the pick-up and drove off to Happy Garden on Maury Island.

This was the site of last year’s Food Bank Farm, but the land-owner, David Kirkland, died over the winter and his children have other plans for the place. Meanwhile the farm-stand’s gone skeletal, the fields shaggy and blown, and the harvesting of the garlic felt more like plucking survivors from the waves of grain, clover, and thistle coming on strong.

Elephant Garlic

The harvesters were already hard at it when I arrived at the opening bell of 1pm. Mounds of elephant garlic—a leek, actually—were piling up in the trampled rows as shovels and forks popped them out of the ground. My, they were large: heads about 4″ across, the plants as tall as this busy younster who didn’t want to be photographed as he hauled his harvest to the nearest drop-pile.

Hauling the Elephant Garlic

You can see that the garlic has gone brown at the tips, and this apparently is the perfect stage to harvest. Ron Engeland, author of “Growing Great Garlic” who farms the stinking rose in the Okanogan country, says each green leaf represents one bulb wrapper—that papery stuff you have to peel from the garlic head to reach individual cloves—and if you let all the leaves fade to brown, your wrappers are fading away, too. Since you want those wrappers intact to protect the garlic from drying out, the perfect time to pick garlic is when more than half your plants are going brown at the tips of the top-most leaves. 

Since the elephant garlic was nearly all pulled, Barbara Stratton and I applied our forks and shovels to releasing the hardnecks and softnecks. From their magenta color, I suspect that the softnecks were the variety “Spanish Roja”, considered one of the very best. These you can braid, but not the hardnecks, which as you’d expect from the name stay stiff-necked from ground to truck. These are the heads where the cloves cluster around a central shaft, and they are the original form of garlic. Softnecks have been bred over the centuries for market trade; what we buy in the grocery store is probably the softneck ‘California Early’ or ‘California Late’ grown in Gilroy, California.

from left: Leslie Patheal, Cathy Fulton, Barbara Stratton, and Jenn Coe.

With the 500 row feet of garlic all pulled, we sat down to bundle the garlic for hanging in the barn now at the present Food Bank Garden on Wax Orchard Road. Though you can cook garlic “green” as soon as you get it out of the ground, it will keep only if you “cure” it in a warm, shady place around 80° with plenty of air circulation. In fact, the “experts” recommend using fans if your garlic is even a little moist or if there’s little air movement in your “curing” room.

When Jenn’s truck started to fill up, I tried counting the bundles of dozens and lost count at 65. Jenn said, “I know I’m putting more in a bundle than 12,” so I’m guessing we must have harvested 1200-1500 garlic plants. In 2-3 weeks after their “cure”, another work crew will brush the dirt off, peel back outer wrappers to a clean one, trim the roots and stem from each bulb, and crate them for the Food Bank.

Freshly exposed to what a mature garlic looks like, I went home and poked my fingers into the soil around my own garlic plants. Sure enough, there’s a nicely swollen bulb down there. But only 30% of my 24 plants have gone brown at the tips, so I’ll just pull away the drip-hoses to dry them out entirely before pulling the plants at the end of the month.

If any break open in the meantime, I’ll set those aside for re-planting. And come October, when Jenn puts out the call, I’ll go get another lesson in garlic farming and this time, learn to plant.

Hummm… but will it fit in my salad bowl??

I took this photo about ten days ago. Since then, this Red Romaine and its brothers have been bulking up in Row 5 of what I call “GreenDale Farm,” the vegie patch I get to help with at Bill and Lee Green’s alpaca ranch.  

For me, gardening in a different Island microclimate is an eye-opener. Because GreenDale Farm enjoys full sun and sandy loan soil, tilled rich with alpaca manure and maple leaves, the patch grows most vegetables bigger and quicker than my own hole in the forest. 

Watching how two different gardens grow is thrilling, stomach-filling, and sometimes downright scary. My home garden in the half-shade grows lettuce a’plenty, so the GreenDale lettuce, undisturbed, grows on and on to Gigantor size.  Blink, and the radishes turn into golf-balls. The komatsuna mustard grew from hand-long leaves to boat paddles in three weeks. 

And this Red Romaine—sheesh!—it’s like our Stuffed Moosehead of the Garden. Some prize-winner, sure, but what do you DO with the monster?

(below: Same Seeds, Different Soil.  In the circular inset, the slim, 6″ long leaves of the Red Romaine grown in my shady garden. The big Red Romaine towering over the ripe looseleaf in front of it, came from the same flat as the other, grown from the same packet of seed. What a difference soil and site make!)

Bill, my garden mentor, had the answer: braised lettuce. “I made it for breakfast the other day. Bacon and vinegar in a skillet, then throw in the chopped lettuce just till it wilts—delicious!” 

Wilted Romaine Salad with Bacon

Half a romaine this size feeds two for lunch amply. And like most cooked-greens recipes, this will shrink the lettuce to half its original size or less.

Harvest a big romaine or other lettuce that’s crispy, and wash carefully; cut or tear leaves into 1″+ strips, put in a big salad bowl. Cut three pieces of bacon into cross-wise strips, 1/4 or more wide.. Put in a big skillet, cook on med-high, and when it’s almost cooked through, take 1/2 cup of malt vinegar, pour it in with the bacon (careful for spatters), sugar it to make tangy, salt and pepper it, then pour this tangy sauce over the lettuce and toss until the leaves wilt. Serve immediately.

First, the News:

Cathy Fulton of Mariposa Gardens will hold an Open House & Potluck this Saturday, July 3rd to show her many sustainability projects such as the aquaponic (fish-growing) system, the permaculture guild, frugal container gardening, and bed-turning with a Broadfork. The Open House starts at 4pm, the Potluck at 6pm: bring a dish and maybe musical instruments for some jammin’ later. The address is 228 SW 209th Street, about 100 yards down Monument Road where you can park and walk up her rough gravel driveway. If you just want to help, she’s having a work party Friday to prepare, or you can be a “docent.” To contact her, visit http://mariposagardens.org. 

Greens on a Deadline

Are we on the cusp of real summer?

One hint is that the cool-weather crops, mature for a few weeks now, are showing signs they’re getting ready to bolt. My loose-leaf lettuce sprawls open, some spinach plants have seed-pods in their top-knots, the mustards and choi wave yellow flowers in the air. Even the Langley Farms’ cabbage, which over-wintered well, has chosen this moment to head up and keel over.

Yes, there’s a LOT of leafy greens out there, thanks to all the rain we’ve “enjoyed.”  After eating as much as two households can, Bill Green and I gazed over rows still stuffed with produce and decided to donate lettuce, spinach, cress, pak choi, and armloads of Komatsuna, an Asian mustard spinach, to the Food Bank. 15 pounds worth—felt good. 

And I wasn’t the only one: as I was loading bags out the front door into the Food Bank’s delivery van, another gardener heavy-laden with greens walked in the back door and called out “Can you use these?”

Who knew Spinach would be good with Strawberries?

Henry, head of Thriftway produce, approached me as I was digging for the second day in a row through the flats of Sakuma Brothers strawberries. “They’ve been flying out the door ever since we decided to sell by weight and put up the ‘take as much as you want’ sign.” He said the store will be getting Sakuma Bros. raspberries later today (Wednesday, 30th), with blueberries later, finally blackberries and boysenberries. 

If you’re lucky, you might also score some locally grown strawberries at the farmer’s market or at farm stands this weekend.

I’ve been enjoying the California organic strawberries this spring—in a green salad dressed with a fruity vinaigrette, they add good color and a tart, refreshing taste. In fact, they’re better this way than in a dessert.

But these are WASHINGTON berries, from Sakuma Brothers, the largest berry grower in Skagit County. And while not organic, these strawbs are truly Dessert-Worthy—all the way red, sweet and soft, and ripe THIS MINUTE. 

And only with such ripe berries can you understand why Italians love strawberries in balsamic vinegar. Here’s two recipes that marry the berries to this magic dark elixir.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

Wash and cut fresh spinach across the leaf into ribbons. Top with slices of plain feta cheese or dollops of creme fraiche (I’ll explain how to make that below). Place 6-8 sliced strawberries on top of the cheese and drizzle a vinaigrette of 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, S & P and a bit of sweetener.

Black-Tie Strawberries & Creme (fraiche)

You start this the day before with a pint of yogurt and two empty plastic containers, one a pint, the other just large enough to hold the pint with room below (We use pint and quart versions of salsa containers). In the pint container, cut a slit in the bottom that’s 3/4″ wide and shaped like a half-opened eye, not quite all the way across the bottom. Put a coffee filter on top of this, then the pint within the larger jar. Here’s your creme fraiche maker, cheap and simple.

Buy or make a pint of plain, rather stiff yogurt: Nancy’s yogurt works well. Pour yogurt into the coffee filter in the pint container until nearly full, then place the whole contraption into the refrigerator to let the yogurt shed its whey into the “well” in the quart container. In 24 hours, you’ll have a yogurt cheese that’s remarkably like creme fraiche, thick enough to stand up a spoon. Sweeten with sugar for a sweet treat, or season with savories, garlic salt, or herbs for a cracker spread.

(DON’T pour the whey down your plumbing: Cindy Morrison confessed in her recent cheese class that when she did that, cheese formed up in her pipes! So toss it into your garden beds or compost, or use the whey in bread-making.)

The next day, in the hour before dinner, wash strawberries, sweeten, and over them drizzle a scant tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Mix and set aside for flavors to develop. 

After dinner, sweeten 1/4 cup (per person) of creme fraiche and layer in the bottom of dessert bowls. In a separate small bowl, make a chocolate paste with that squeezeable Hershey’s chocolate sauce you bought (for your kids, yah RIGHT!) and a tablespoon or two of powdered cocoa (sweeten if bitter); dollop a spoonful of that in each dessert bowl. Finally, artifully arrange the strawberries over the chocolate and sprinkle on a “snow” of sweetener if needed. A sprig of mint will dress this up nicely. And if you want to really amaze your guests, ask them if they’d “like a grinding of black pepper on that?”

Of all the gardens in the VAA Garden Tour, this one is the most relaxed—now that it’s done.

When Greg and Lisa Elliott moved in, the landscape around their house was a tangle of undergrowth beneath the trees, sopping wet from run-off coming from uphill. Today, it’s a landscape of soothingly flat lawns separated by rock terraces and wide beds, surrounded by paths Greg bushwacked through his forest.

When you approach, notice the two large coral-bark maples, brilliantly lime against the galvanized metal garage. Descend the steps down the center of Greg’s favorite border, now blooming with red-blooming heuchera against golden abelias and grasses. Framing the front door are two box-leaf azara trees, one variegated, one not; ‘Variegata’ lost much of its top in the winter storm of 08/09.

To the east is the first stone wall, created to ease the uphill water run-off; there’s a french tile at its toe. Mahonia, Cistus, Hardy Geraniums, and small trees punctuate it. Near the border’s center steps is another near-casualty: a snowbell tree now in bloom that lost its top when part of the willow uphill fell on it.

Opposite, against the house, is a series of variegated plants: Iris pallida, Hosta, and a surprisingly large variegated Buxus. At the SE corner, a Phlomis jabs its weird yellow flowers in front of a mounding golden Berberis. Beside the house, yellow dwarf Callas bloom. Uphill, yellow Asiatic lilies are just coming on. 

And around the corner, slightly up in the woods, a splendid dogwood tree—Cornus kousa—glows like the moon rising in the shadows, preceded by a purple Berberis contrasting with a Spirea bumalda ‘Gold Flame” in front.

This is a restrained garden, but all this variegation, silver, and gold, move the Elliott Garden from dull to sparkling. As you move to the west side of the house, notice the groundcover Corydalis lutea (yellow fumitory) covered with tiny yellow funnels against tear-drop leaves. These plants are descendents from the garden of Greg’s grandma, who died in 1970. “I kept the seeds in my desk drawer through college and beyond, and threw them on the ground here years ago.  I love that they self-sustain and move around the yard.” In fact, they’ve crowding up against a large stand of Solomon’s Seal. Also here is a Fatsia that once rose to the house gutters before being struck down by, again, that winter storm of 08/09.

Greg says, “the garden’s basically finished now,” but I get the sense there’s a new interest budding. In that favorite border, he wanted me to see two diminutive plants: a tiny Pagoda Holly by the steps, stubby at 16″ high and further on, what looks like a spray of evergreen fiber-optics. “That’s an Alaskan Red Cedar—it’s called ‘Whipcord.’ Isn’t it great? I got it from Portland Avenue Nursery in Tacoma. I really like their stuff.”

Maybe the Elliott Garden isn’t done after all.